


The Measure of Ourselves

by LadySilver



Series: Boundary Lines [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Full Moon, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/pseuds/LadySilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the lacrosse state finals are scheduled for the same day as the full moon, Scott has to figure out how to make both events work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally written back in September and October for the Teen Wolf Big Bang Challenge on LJ. The Big Bang appears to have fizzled out and I'm tired of sitting on the story. Muchas gracias go to Mary_Greenman, pointysparkles, and fountainxxpenny for the beta reads and comments on the various drafts of this.

Just when Scott thought he was starting to get the hang of balancing being a teenager with being a werewolf, he had to get reminded of how precarious that balance could be.

He stared in disbelief at the hand-out for the state semi- and final games. With less than a week to go before the big weekend, the planning committee had at last released the times that the four games were to be played. The worst had come true: Beacon Hills was due to start their semi-final game half an hour before moonrise. On the day of the full moon.

He'd known about the last part, of course, because he now knew more about the lunar cycle than he ever thought there was to know. But he'd been holding out hope that Beacon Hills would earn the earlier time slot, the one that would let him play and still make it into hiding before he changed.

The time slot wasn't bad enough. Coach had printed the travel information up and distributed the flyers to the players, then proceeded to yell at them about what it said, starting with the fact that "some asshole" had scheduled the tournament so far from Beacon Hills that he was going to be forced to "haul all you slobs" off to a hotel where "you had damn well better behave yourselves." Oh, and because of some unspecified issues he was having with the bus company, the team would be making the trip to the game site on Thursday.

Scott closed his eyes. The letters continued to burn on the backs of his eyelids. Lacrosse finals, the one event he had most looked forward to, and he couldn't go. If any of the details had been different, he could have found a way to work around the full moon. But the details couldn't have been aligned worse.

On dismissal, the other players scrambled to their feet, their excitement palpable. Any excuse to get out of school was one to be celebrated, especially when combined with a night in a hotel away from parents. Scott remained seated. The blue-tinted paper shook from the strength of his grip.

Finally he leveraged himself up and followed Coach into his office. Coach was shuffling through the papers and folders piled on his desk, muttering about something he couldn't find; a black Bic pen stuck out of his mouth. His normally unkempt hair stuck out worse than usual. "Forget it, McCall," he snapped, reading Scott's intentions with a glance. Scott opened his mouth to argue, but Coach kept right on speaking. "I need you there." He slapped his hand on a piece of paper as if to keep it from blowing away, held it up with a triumphant _gotcha_. "I'm only going to say this once," he continued, "and save us both the effort: if you don't play—"

"I'm off first line?" Scott suggested, in the one pause he was given as the coach drew a fresh breath to power the rest of the threat.

"—You're off the team. You're done." He shook the paper at Scott, seemed to remember that he was holding it, crumpled it up and shoved it in his pocket. Re-aiming his finger at his star player, he shot the big guns: "Face it, McCall. Without lacrosse, you have no chance at college. Hell, without lacrosse, you have no chance at _graduating_."

Scott blanched. He had entered the office with a goal, but without having had any chance to work out what to say to achieve it. It was a conversation he'd never imagined would be necessary. Last year when the team had gone to state, Scott had eagerly accompanied them, even though he knew he had no chance of being allowed on field, and he had been scheduled to work that day, hours for which he had originally begged. _Not_ going had never been a consideration. Now, in a handful of sentences, Coach Finstock managed to blow apart every excuse the teen might have been able to come up with, leaving him reeling, disoriented. "B-b-but, I—" he started, certain that he could still think of something if he could just get a chance to talk.

Coach yanked the pen out of his mouth and whipped it onto the desk. It bounced once, rolled to the floor. "Cancel your date, call in sick to work, get your chores done early. You're going to the finals." He twirled his hand toward the door in the loudest unspoken "Get your ass outta here," that Scott had ever seen.

Head bowed, feet heavy, Scott complied. Despite himself, he cast a glance back over his shoulder. Coach had returned to digging through the papers on his desk; without looking up, he echoed the earlier flick of his hand, having apparently anticipated Scott's reluctance to acquiesce. _God dammit!_ Why wouldn't he listen? No sooner had the question crossed his mind than he realized how little it mattered. Sure, with enough perseverance, he could probably get Coach to listen. But then, what was he supposed to tell him? How was he supposed to explain that he would spend the day of the semi-final slowly going insane? That if he went out on the field, he'd joyfully slaughter everyone else out there? Scott dragged the toe of his shoe back and forth across the cement floor of the locker room, a hand on the metal frame of his locker. There had to be a solution. He just had to figure out what it was.

~~~

Stiles dropped his lunch tray on the table. The impact made the top bun of the sloppy joes slide off the meat sauce. "Why didn't you just show him?" he asked. "Sprout some fur, grow some claws—" He mimed long sideburns and waggled his fingers with the suggestions. "Oh, oh, or make your eyes glow," he added, squinting his own as if that would flick on some light switch in his head. "It's not like it would be hard to prove."

Scott scowled at him and set his own tray down. "Great plan," he replied. "Then I'll follow up with a demonstration at the pep rally. I'm sure there won't be any problems. It's not like there aren't enough people trying to kill me right now."

"You know, there's a big difference between telling Coach and telling everyone. Besides," Stiles pointed out as they took their seats, "if he knew the truth, maybe he'd let you out of the game. It's only the semi-final."

"What if he kicks me off the team, instead?" His voice rose as he spoke, his chest tightening at the thought. The metal cafeteria fork gripped in his hand started to bend. He let it drop to the table. Coach wasn't exactly known for being open-minded, but he did care about the well-being of his players. If he knew how dangerous one of his players was, how easily the violence of the game could end with that player ripping the others limb from limb, he wouldn't take the risk. Nor could Scott blame him.

Picking up the sandwich, Stiles squeezed a large bite into his mouth, licked the sauce off his lips, swallowed. "He said he's going to kick you off the team if you don't go, but that's only because he doesn't understand the situation. If you tell him and he still boots you, then what have you really lost?"

Scott bodily turned, narrowed his eyes in disbelief. "Besides the chance to ever play lacrosse again?" he asked. And graduate high school, and maybe go to college. The list of consequences just kept growing. He dragged his fingers through his hair, clenched his hands into tight fists. It was all he could do not to punch the table.

"You can't seriously be thinking about going to finals?"

Scott forced himself to untense, forced his fingers to uncurl. He was still wound tight inside. But he refused to take it out on Stiles. He sighed, instead, and prodded at his own sandwich. While he was hungry, the greasy meat didn't offer much appeal. Nor did the tater tots that filled the rest of the plate.

"Oh my god," Stiles proclaimed. "You _are_ thinking about it." The sandwich hung, forgotten, in his hands. Sloppy joe sauce leaked from the bun onto his tray.

"No, of course not," Scott replied, the words sounding insincere even to his ears. The only lunch item he hadn't considered yet was a small red apple with a suspicious hole near the stem. He picked the fruit up, sniffed it, set it back down. "Fine. Maybe a little." With a frown, he scanned the room, suddenly realizing that no one had joined them at the table. "Where's Allison?"

Stiles slugged him on the shoulder. "Uh-uh," he said. "You are not changing the topic."

Rubbing his shoulder, Scott continued peering around the crowded cafeteria. He found Jackson eating at a table right in the center of the room with Danny, Brian, and a contingent of other lacrosse players. Lydia sat at a table near the door with the members of the prom committee, though she was staring off into a space over their heads while they giggled and nudged each other. He couldn't see or smell Allison anywhere in the room. Even though he didn't need to worry about her being a target of the Alpha anymore, not being able to find her still made him nervous. He rose up, knelt with one leg on the plastic seat, and tried to listen over the conversational cacophony around him for Allison's voice.

"God, you're pathetic," Stiles said directly into his ear. Scott flinched at the relative volume. "She's fine. Wherever she is, she's fine. She's probably studying in the library. People do that, you know. Study. And homework."

After a moment, Scott nodded, conceded the truth of his friend's statement, and sank back down. "What am I supposed to do, Stiles?" He pushed his finger into one of the tater tots, grinding it into a shredded potato pulp.

His friend took another, too large, bite of the now-remembered sandwich, and chewed thoughtfully. "You know, dude, you keep asking me that." He swallowed, shrugged. "I don't know how you're going to solve this one."

~~~

Now that the times were public, all anyone could talk about was plans for attending the finals. The Parents Athletic Club was organizing a fan bus for kids who wanted to ride up on Friday or Saturday to watch. The Administration—never ones to let academics get in the way of sports—announced that school would be dismissed two hours early on that Friday to allow students and faculty to safely get to the game site. The band director was stalking the halls trying to round up the instrumentation for pep bands for both nights—it being taken for a given that Beacon Hills would advance to the State Final. The excitement wasn't just palpable; Scott could taste it. It coated his tongue like espresso, became all he could smell. Rather than being rousing, the scent made his stomach curl in a tight ball.

People he didn't know kept congratulating him, asking him if he was ready, if he was nervous. "We're going to kill them!" more than one person assured him, fist pumping in the air at the thought of another trophy for the display case, another bragging point for the interschool rivalries. "We're going to _slaughter_ them!" they shouted, as they ran through the halls. He swallowed against the lump in this throat that wouldn't go away. His could feel the vein on his temple throbbing, harder with each cheer directed at him.

He finally met up with Allison again in Econ. She greeted him with a quick kiss, took the seat behind him. "I missed you at lunch," Scott said. He scooted his desk back until it touched hers, sat sideways in his seat to get as close to her as possible. So far she was the only one who hadn't said anything to him about the finals.

"Sorry," she replied, sounding more distracted than apologetic. "I was talking with a teacher."

"What about?"

She waved the question off with her hand. "Nothing important."

"Oh," he said, brows creasing. Her heartbeat didn't give anything away. Was she keeping secrets now? Wouldn't he know if she were? Or did her hunter training include the ability to deceive werewolf senses?

She smiled then, wide and dimpled, blissfully derailing his train of thought. Now that they had his secrets out in the open, he really couldn't believe that she still wanted to date him. It was bad enough before she knew, when she thought he was quirky and weird, when all she saw was a guy who changed his story in the middle of a sentence, who ran out of parties and away from congratulations after winning a lacrosse game; now it had ratcheted up. He dreamed sometimes about her breaking up with him, was sure that she would when she started to grasp the danger he posed, now that she knew why he'd needed to run away. She grabbed his hand with both of hers and pulled it to her cheek. "So, are we still on for the range after school?" she asked.

The bell rang while he was trying to adjust to the topic shift. Ever since they had defeated the Alpha, Allison had been trying to take Scott out to the archery range. She had suggested it as a way to spend more time together while she trained, said it would help her to improve her own skills as she taught him. He kept deflecting the invitation, on the grounds that he had only ever touched a bow once at a summer day-camp when he was ten and he was worse at archery than bowling. "I hit everything except the target," he told her, when she pressed him for the story. "It was like, no matter what I did, the arrows wanted to do their own thing." Voice softer, he added, "Two times, twice—" He held up two fingers in a "V" as further emphasis of the number-"I hit the counselor—who was standing behind me. They made me do macaroni art for the rest of the week." To Allison's credit, she didn't laugh. She smiled, but she didn't laugh.

What he didn't tell her was that every time he saw a compound bow, all he could think about was getting shot in the arm on his first full moon. The story about camp was true, but also irrelevant. With his werewolf reflexes, archery wouldn't be a problem. Look what happened to his bowling game. But being around bows and arrows made him shudder, made it harder to keep the wolf quieted. Allison insisted that his reserve was nothing more than proper respect for a deadly weapon. He suspected that his fear was a nascent phobia. On the other hand, tough-girl Allison was hot, and he really did want to see that side of her more. "Maybe," he finally responded, hoping he'd be able to come up with an excuse to get out of going before school ended. He turned to the front of the class quickly in pretense of needing to pay attention before she could press him for a stronger commitment.

Finstock ended up saving Scott. He called Scott, Stiles, and the three other lacrosse players in the class to the front of the room. "These guys are what people think of when they think of Beacon Hills," he announced, pacing in front of the assembled row of teens, shoulders hunched like he was about to charge. He left a pause like he expected the class to applaud the players. No one did, though a couple people squirmed in their seats as if they were being tested on something they should know but didn't. Scott knew that feeling well. "Take a good look at these guys," Finstock said after a moment, "because you're not going to see much of them for the next week. These guys should be your heroes. Your heroes! When people think of Beacon Hills, they think of lacrosse, and that's what these guys are!" He sucked in a breath, as if gearing up for another verse. For once he had the entire class's attention, their eyes wide, faces schooled into shocked impassivity. As if he couldn't pass up this opportunity, he dismissed the players back to their seats and turned to the board. Stiles caught Scott's eye and made a face. Finstock hadn't outright said it, but it was clear that he intended to spend every extra-curricular minute he could snatch making the team practice.

Scott groaned quietly and buried his head in his hands. Every time it seemed like he was finally going to get what he wanted, the rules changed and what he wanted became the worst thing that could happen.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles had three problems he was letting his brain chew on while his butt continued to test the effectiveness of the bench on the lacrosse field. The first problem was Scott. Since the first problem was always Scott, he decided to put that one on the metaphorical back burner. The second problem was to work out a way to be allowed to play in the finals—without putting out a hit on any of his teammates. Though he used to indulge in fantasies about one or more of his teammates mysteriously dying, his recent brushes with actual death had forced him to realize how Not Funny those fantasies were. Still, he couldn't plan on another pink eye epidemic, and the only way to move up was for someone else to move down. Not that he didn't enjoy being the perpetual plan C—well, OK, he didn't. But college applications weren't much farther down his scholastic journey, and he needed something interesting to write an essay about that an acceptance committee might actually _believe_. The essays he had already written on lycanthropy were stored on a password protected flash drive that he hid in an old shoe. He wasn't even sure why he'd written them, except that he had to share his thoughts and observations with _someone_ , and Scott just wasn't the kind of person who liked to debate for the sake of debating. Hell, half the time Scott acted as if _denial_ and _cure_ were synonyms. And now he was back to the first problem. Stiles gave his head a shake, noticed that his mouth was dry from being agape, as it often was when he was thinking. He closed it, swallowed, and struggled to refocus. There were other problems besides his best friend's werewolf issues.

Such as Jackson.

Ever since the Alpha's defeat, Jackson had become a conundrum. Most of the time, he could be counted on to the brash dick that he'd always been. But sometimes, Scott told him, when no one else was around, Jackson acted almost subservient. "He cleaned my gear," Scott said, sounding baffled. "Another time he tried to give me his lunch." He squinted as he said this, tone rising in a question-like lilt. Clearly he could tell how ridiculous the statement was.

"Did you take it?" Stiles asked, and curled his lips into a moue.

"Of course I didn't take it," Scott snapped. "I had my own lunch." The two friends had been playing a video game during this conversation, both sprawled across the floor in Stiles's living room. The volume on the television was turned way down at Scott's request, which was having the converse effect on Stiles of making it harder for him to concentrate on the images flickering in front of him. Where he'd normally be trouncing his best friend's _ass_ at this game, Scott had either been practicing a lot on the sly or was making use of werewolf reflexes, even though he'd promised not to. A series of explosions burst across the screen. While they waited for the pixelated smoke to clear, Scott leaned over slightly, as if to relay a secret. He licked his lips, then offered: "Sometimes I can hear him pacing around the locker room when I'm showering." Scott blinked and shook his head, no doubt trying to rid his mind of disturbing imagery.

Stiles wished he could shake unholy thoughts of his head so easily. "Why?" he asked, not unreasonably. He couldn't imagine any reason that Jackson would hang around the locker room while Scott showered, unless the guy had suddenly turned into a perv—which, well, could have happened. There had to be an explanation that made sense, one that didn't involve Jackson perving on Scott, because there were thoughts that Stiles had never wanted to have, and that one easily topped the list.

"It's, I dunno, like ... he's guarding me?"

Now Stiles blinked. "Are you asking or answering? BOOM! That's right!" Scott winced at Stiles's sudden cheer in his ear, or maybe because of what Stiles had just done on screen that was totally redeeming his slow start in the game. Stiles held out his fist for a congratulatory bump, which Scott returned even though the congratulations were at his expense. "Why would Jackson be interested in _guarding_ you?" Stiles continued. "Did he miss the part where you're a _werewolf_?"

Scott shrugged. "It's … just a feeling," he answered. Without warning, Scott started to mash furiously at the buttons on the controller, his whole body jerking and twisting as he tried to manipulate the avatar on the screen. Stiles tried not to wince at what he was sure was about to be the sudden demise of the controller. Scott didn't always remember how strong he'd gotten. And, OK, maybe it had only happened that once. Well, and that other time, but that didn't really count. And even though Scott had insisted on paying for the replacements, they didn't need to make a trend of it.

"Dude," Stiles exclaimed, reaching for the cord. Not that he had any hope of pulling the controller from Scott's hands without guaranteeing its death. The good news was that Scott wasn't angry; or, if he was, he wasn't showing it. Claws were hell on plastic.

"NO!" Scott wailed. His avatar ran out of life for the last time on the screen in front of them, and Stiles couldn't help but feel a little vindictive happiness at the thought that even werewolf reflexes hadn't been enough to pull out a win. Scott pitched his controller onto the floor and flopped backward melodramatically.

Stiles sighed and hit the button to pause the game, not yet willing to go for a full reset. His high score was too close and he could taste the possibility of cracking it. But he couldn't do that until he dealt with the topic at hand first. He set the controller aside for the moment. "What kind of feeling?" he asked. He scrubbed his hands over his face at the need to push for answers, especially on this topic, and tried not to groan.

Scott didn't respond immediately. Stiles thought he might not have heard him, and turned to repeat the question. Scott had his head pillowed on his arms. As soon as he knew he had Stile's attention, he let his eyes burn gold, as if that should be answer enough. To his surprise, Stiles realized it was. "Oh," he responded. "That kind of feeling." The werewolf's one attempt at explaining this lycanthropic skill had been muddled, but Stiles deduced that it had to be a kind of empathy related to the enhanced senses. This one time, he couldn't blame Scott for not having the vocabulary to explain what was going on; the empathy was, after all, happening outside of spoken language. "Are you sure that it's not ... something else?" he pressed, once again flashing on the idea that Jackson was watching, but not where Scott thought he was.

Now he got the expected shrug, the splaying of hands. "I don't know," Scott replied, his pitch breaking as he'd had to force the words out. Stiles rubbed the back of his neck, tried to work out how to interpret this. Was his friend afraid of following where the question led? Was there more he didn't want to talk about?

Filing the conversation away for future mulling, Stiles decided to let Scott off the hook … for now. He changed the topic to a survey of the girls in their classes, which had been a favorite and endlessly fruitful topic. Before Allison. Now it was mostly Stiles talking to himself while Scott stared sappily off into thin air, presumably dreaming about all the ways he'd be getting some later. Stiles wasn't as bothered by this as people often assumed. Since the formal, Stiles had felt his long-held torch for Lydia dimming to the point where he thought he might soon be able to seriously consider other girls. Eventually he would get a girlfriend, one whom he wouldn't see only in Lydia's shadow. When he did, he'd know all the ways not to screw up that Scott had so generously suffered through on both their behalves. Scott had become like his personal recon scout.

And it had happened again. Stiles stomped a foot into the grass, only a part of the full-body _damn it_ he made. Keeping the threads of his thoughts untangled was so hard. Fortunately, no one appeared to have noticed him gesticulating to himself. The first line had switched from running drills to a huddle while Coach ranted at them. The active second line was pounding their way around the outside of the field, sent on a lap run for reasons Stiles had been too busy in his own head to care about. It looked like Coach was warming them up for a scrimmage. He, and the rest of the second line, had apparently been forgotten. Right now, that was perfectly okay with him. He had some data collecting to do, all of which involved Jackson. Stiles leaned forward on the bench, apparently deeply attentive to the warm-ups going on in front of him. While he watched, the players moved into scrimmage positions.

To add to the mystery of the older boy, Jackson had never followed through on his threat to either destroy Scott's life or to tell his secret, nor had he ever made another mention of it. This was so out-of-character that Stiles had to wonder if he hadn't been switched with a well-made, but mentally inferior, clone. How did one go about identifying clones, anyway? Stiles spent a couple minutes trying to catalog anything he knew about Jackson's moles and scars—realized that he had never paid attention to either. And he was not. going. to. start.

He noticed a lot of things, a lot more than anybody ever understood, even his own father and his best friend, because he had long ago learned that information was power. He had also realized that his inability to focus on one thing could be useful. Though he freely claimed ADHD when the need for a diagnosis arose, he preferred to think of the way his brain worked as hyperattentive. It wasn't that he couldn't focus; it's that he wasn't always sure _what_ to focus on when everything was so damned interesting.

And, it was funny, because if Stiles didn't know better, he'd swear that Jackson was drunk. The giveaways were little things, things he saw only because he was looking. Jackson's timing was off. He was still a damn good player, but he was missing catches he wouldn't miss any other time; other players had to lunge for throws that normally would have homed right in on their nets. Jackson's balance was off. Stiles watched him throw a ball, then lock his knees as if the alternative were to tip over. He jumped for a catch—which he missed—and turned his left ankle as he landed. He got tackled and took just a few more seconds to stand up than the force of the impact would have suggested, and he'd needed to plant his hand as a brace rather than just rolling to his feet. Stiles couldn't see his eyes, but he was willing to bet his whole music collection that Jackson's sharp blues were dulled and dilated. He made a mental note to ask Scott if Jackson had smelled funny. He'd be willing to bet his Jeep that the answer to that was also affirmative, since Scott kept sniffing the air where Jackson had been and making faces through his helmet that were clearly meant for Stiles to see.

Then Jackson's reflex issues caught up with him. The ball was rolling free down the field. Jackson took off after it, didn't see that two opposing players were coming in behind him. He scooped his stick down—and missed. He stopped suddenly, half turned as if searching for the ball that didn't realize was right next to his foot, and got tackled by both players. Jackson hit the ground, his wind audibly knocked out of him. The scrimmage halted while Coach ran over to check on his former star player.

Assessment only took a couple minutes. In the end Jackson was deemed shaken, but fine, and sent over to the bench to rest while the remainder of the team continued practice. Stiles watched him out of his peripheral, eyes narrowed. Jackson stumbled once on his way to the bench, then sat down and tipped too far to the one side before recovering. Stiles ran a hand over his mouth in contemplation. He'd seen Jackson drunk before, and, though this looked like how someone might act, it didn't look like how _Jackson_ had acted. Then Stiles was called out to the field and he had to play, as if practice would ever benefit him or his chances of playing in a real game. He did his best, because he always did, but he couldn't stop teasing at the clues and trying to prod them into fitting together.

After practice, Stiles waited until Scott stepped out of the shower before hitting him with the question that had bubbled into his brain toward the end of the afternoon; he figured that if Scott were mostly naked, he'd be less likely to run away instead of answering. No sooner was the towel wrapped around his friend's waist then he asked, "Is Jackson a werewolf?"

Scott started, whipped his head around. "Shhh," he hissed. He clenched a fist around the top of the towel, as if it were that or Stiles's throat. "Not here."

"Well, is he?" Stiles insisted, deliberately not taking the hint. The locker room was loud with the pounding of water from the still running showers, the clanging and banging of gear hitting the floor or being tossed into lockers, the slamming of locker doors, and the post-practice conversations of the players, which always seemed to include a lot of shouting and body contact. Between that and the concerted effort to keep his voice low, he hoped that even if Jackson were a werewolf, the question wouldn't be overheard. He knew how sensitive Scott's hearing had become, knew that Scott could hear a person half a mile away draw a breath. But he also knew that Scott had to _try_ to achieve that. With enough background noise, and no reason to listen, not even a werewolf would overhear this conversation.

Again his friend cast his gaze around the locker room. Apparently satisfied that no one human was listening in, he answered, "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Stiles demanded, following Scott to his locker. He was already dressed. It wasn't difficult to do when you were the first one into the locker room. "Don't you have some kind of special werewolf identification radar? A were-dar?" Stiles couldn't help noticing his friend wince when he said _werewolf._ Still?

Scott pressed his lips together, ran a hand through his damp hair. "Don't you think that if I did—" He leaned a little closer, lowered his voice. "-I might have used it to find the Alpha?"

Stiles frowned. "Good point," he said. "So you don't know?"

Scott grabbed his deodorant off the top shelf, turned away and started applying it. He was clearly ignoring Stiles. "I'll take that as another 'I don't know'," Stiles supplied, a little ticked that his friend hadn't followed the script. "And, in case you're curious—which I doubt you are since you haven't said anything,-I'm asking because—"

Without turning around, Scott slapped a hand over Stiles's mouth and shushed him again. "He's walking this way," the werewolf whispered. Stiles nodded once to show he understood and the hand withdrew.

A few seconds later, Jackson sauntered past their lockers, also dressed in only a towel, body and hair still damp. He had a second towel slung over his right arm. As he passed them, his step picked up more spring and his lips spread into a sly smile, like he had some secret knowledge. Then he caught Stiles's eye and winked.

"Did you see that?" Stiles asked, punching Scott's shoulder to get his attention.

"Ow. And no," Scott replied. He rubbed briefly at the site, rolled his shoulder as if whatever minor injury Stiles may have caused wasn't already healed. "Did you understand what Harris was talking about in Chem today?"

"Now you're just changing the subject," Stiles replied.

"Yeah," Scott agreed. He started pulling on his clothes: faded jeans, a double-layered t-shirt, socks that needed replacing. "Also, I'm trying really hard to think about things that aren't—" he cut himself off, cringed, the unspoken part clear.

"Fine." Stiles ran a hand over his hair. Droplets of water sputtered out. Was the guy not facing reality? Or just picking and choosing which reality to face? "That's great. I understand. I'll email you my notes tonight." He retrieved his bag and stick. He took a breath, the humidity from the showers heavy in his lungs. "We'll figure it out, Scotty," he added. "We always do."


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Scott arrived home, he was so hungry that it took him three tries to get the key into the lock. The metal scraped against metal to a chorus of growls and rumbles from his stomach that should be drawing the neighbors from their houses. He was so busy charting a path through the kitchen—they'd had bananas on the counter, was the lunchmeat still good? Maybe some Hot Pockets were left in the freezer—that he didn't notice until the door swung open that he had been smelling real food. His mother had cooked. He sniffed. His stomach churned in protest of the obvious tease. His mother had cooked a real meal: Steak and brown rice and tomato sauce. Salad with avocados and vinagrette. It was quite a step up from what she normally made: variations of ground beef, pasta, and Campbell's soups.

A glance at his phone confirmed that it was nearly 10 pm. "Mom?" he called. Wasn't she supposed to be at work? He pushed the door shut and tossed his backpack onto the stairs to be transported up when he went to bed.

Melissa stepped out of the kitchen. She was dressed in jeans and a plain blue t-shirt, a pot-holder mitt covered one hand. She gripped a long, wooden, and very clean spoon in the other. "I'm glad you came right home," she said. Sweat was beaded along her hairline and a flush burned her cheeks. "I got the night off."

"So you decided to cook dinner at 10 o'clock at night," Scott asked, unable to keep the suspicion out of his voice. "A really nice dinner."

She glanced at the spoon, as if looking at the smoking barrel of a gun she'd forgotten she was holding. "I picked up the main course on the way home," she confessed. "One of those make-your-own-meals places. But I did make the salad." She said the last as if crossing off an accomplishment from her bucket list.

Scott smiled, headed into the kitchen. At this point, he was too hungry to care where the food came from, especially since just a moment before he'd been contemplating Hot Pockets and failing lunch meat.

The table was already set, the plates dished up. Scott eyed the spread, the suspicion returning. There was more to this than a parent feeding her teenager. "Why do you have the night off?" he asked. "You always work Mondays."

Melissa motioned him to sit with a wave of the pot holder, which she tossed to the counter as soon as he complied. The throw was a bad one, the mitt bouncing off the edge and slipping to the floor. "Well, I know you didn't get your athletic skill from me," she quipped. Scott's tried not to look pained at her joke, and mostly failed. He hoped she'd think it was the joke itself causing his expression and not the fact that he _had_ inherited his athletic skill from her. She sighed and started cutting up the steak. "I wanted a chance to talk to you before you left, and Sue was willing to cover my shift tonight, so…." She shrugged, as if accepting the offer for a night off was both completely out of her hands and inconsequential.

Scott knew better on both counts. He didn't let that stop him from eating. The food was good, and despite his stomach's earlier insistence, he hadn't realized just how hungry he was. He ate with dedication for awhile. Melissa let him.

As he was reaching for the salad bowl for another serving, she finally spoke. "Your coach called today."

Scott's hand stilled, frozen on top of the tongs. "Yeah?"

She poked a bit of lettuce into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. "He seemed concerned about you." Set her fork down.

Scott quirked an eyebrow. Coach? Concerned enough to call a player's parent? Half the time he couldn't even remember what his players' names _were_. "Why?" he asked.

"He wanted me to tell you that you shouldn't be nervous about this weekend." She laced her fingers together over the plate, set her elbows on the table as a prop. "He also wanted to know why you were trying to get out of going."

Scott pulled his hand off the tongs, let them fall back into the bowl. "What did you tell him?"

She tipped her head to the side, bit her lip, as if pondering what to say. "I …" She trailed off, eyes sweeping the kitchen as if the rest of her sentence was lurking behind the toaster or under an unwashed dish. "Scott," she said, finding him again, "if you want to stay home, I'll come up with something to tell him."

He nearly choked. He didn't even have anything in his mouth, and suddenly he couldn't swallow. He coughed, trying to clear an obstruction that was probably imaginary. "Stay home?" he repeated, croaking the words out.

She was looking at him sideways, now, as if afraid of scaring him. "Is that what you want?"

"Mom?" he croaked. He half expected her to start peeling at the edge of her face, rip it off like to mask to reveal … his imagination shorted out at that point. "Y-y-you don't need to tell him anything." What did she know? Did she know? He was sucking air in faster than necessary. The meal now felt like a trap, like a baited snare she had used to catch him. And he had fallen for it. He wanted nothing more than to kick free and tear away. He fought to stay sitting, to at least keep his body language from showing his panic. Lies he could use tumbled through his thoughts.

"Scott, it's OK," she said. She reached across the table and laid a hand over his. The touch calmed him, made it easier to maintain the charade, made him realize how ridiculous he was being. "I won't do anything you don't want me to," she promised.

A long moment passed, the ticking of the house's radiators the only interruption. He was so tempted to take up her offer; it could make Friday easier, if he could trust himself to get through it alone. Or it could create bigger long term problems. He dragged his fingers through his hair. Whatever choice he made, he was going to regret it.

Finally, he nodded. He'd find a way to go and a way to make it work. His mom squeezed his hand once, pulled hers back. They had reached an agreement or an understanding; he wasn't sure which. "I'll be fine," he told her. As part of the deal, they had both agreed to ignore that lie. "Stiles will be there," he added, hoping that she would accept that small reassurance in trade.

"In that case," she said, "I'm sure you'll do fine. You've become an amazingly talented lacrosse player." Her gaze drifted to the counter next to the refrigerator where she kept the paperwork for the household. A stack of bills crouched under the checkbook like they were planning a mutiny. "Maybe—" she sighed, "—you'll be able to pull down a small scholarship or two." He nodded, knowing full-well that any college plans he might have depended on more than a small scholarship. Perking up then, as if determined to not drag the mood down further, Melissa added, "And I hope you _kill_ the other team."

Scott jumped.

Melissa smiled, half-hearted, her attention already back on her own plate. "Finish your dinner," she said. "Then get your butt up to bed. I'll put the leftovers in the fridge."

~~~

Stiles had meant to spend the evening researching. Honestly. It's just that he'd already devoted untold numbers of hours to plumbing the depths of internet werewolf wisdom, and had long ago realized how oxymoronic that statement was. The Beacon Hills Public Library wasn't much more help. Their limited collection of books were older and bookier—there were definitely more pages involved—but it seemed like the only people in print or in pixels who were willing to share their information were those who had never actually met a werewolf. Which, come to think of it, was interesting. But not helpful.

Then he discovered the werewolf porn.

The next thing he knew, it was 3 o'clock in the morning and all he'd accomplished was to formulate a long list of questions to ask Scott the next time he needed to punish him.

He forced himself to close out his browser and go lay down. Then the alarm was going off, its shrill ringing tearing through his brain. He stared dumbly at the clock for a long moment before determining that it was the source of the noise. It took another moment before he figured out how to make it stop. He groaned. Already he knew his day was ruined.

Somehow he made it to school on time. His limbs felt sluggish and heavy, and he was definitely dragging. He'd had to skip his shower that morning. While his hair was short enough that it didn't need daily shampooing, he still parked a baseball cap on his head on the way out the door, which made him feel less conspicuously unkempt.

Scott arrived while Stiles was navigating his Jeep into one of the few remaining spaces in the back of the parking lot. The younger teen skidded to a stop behind him and slid off the seat, straddling the frame. Though the day was promising to be warm, he had his grey hoodie on, zipped up. His backpack and lacrosse stick were slung over his shoulder.

"Yo," Stiles offered.

"You OK, man?" Scott asked. He cast an eye at the cap, didn't sniff, though. Stiles appreciated that. At least if he smelled bad, Scott had the decorum not to show it. They headed to the bike rack, Scott walking the bike and Stiles trudging next to him while they dodged other late arrivals and small clusters of students milling around and on the parked cars.

Cocking his head like he was listening, Stiles asked, "Did you hear that?" Scott's eyebrows drew together in confusion. Stiles felt a little guilty about the question. With the unsettled masses of Beacon Hills High all seeking to cram as much socializing into the few minutes before first bell, the field of possible _that_ had to be immense to someone who could hear everything. "My pillow is calling," Stiles clarified. "It did not appreciate the abrupt termination of our relationship and really wants me to give it a second chance."

"Oh," Scott responded, sounding distracted. He hunkered down at the rack, wrapped the chain around the bike. He hovered in that position for a long moment after the lock was clicked into place, like he was trying to work out how to say something. Finally he stood up, drew a breath … then appeared to change his mind. He re-slung his backpack onto his shoulders and started into the building. "What were you doing up so late? Did you figure anything out?"

"Contrary to popular belief," Stiles replied, frustration tingeing his voice, "Everything is _not_ on the internet." He had to pause to fight with the door. Getting his backpack and lacrosse stick through the portal was often complicated, what with other people trying to also pass through at the same time; today was no different except it seemed the stick was deliberately trying to impede his progress. "Yes, I _tried_ to do research. No, I didn't learn anything. Werewolf information is pretty much limited to silver bullets and wolfsbane, and I don't think you'd like either of those options."

"Wolfsbane?" Scott blanched at the word. He'd had only a few, brief encounters with the poisonous plant, all of which had driven home the accuracy of its name.

"I did have one idea about that," Stiles started. "Wolfsbane forces you to change, right?" He tugged at his shoulder straps, trying to ease their pull on his shoulders. The hallway stretched out before him like a stick of taffy that was still being pulled.

"Wait," Scott said, slapped a hand on Stiles's chest and physically forced him to stop. Another student who had been walking behind them swore at their abrupt cessation and dodged around them, flashed back a raised middle finger. Scott grabbed Stiles's arm and dragged him over to the side of the hall, at least making a small effort to get out of people's way. "You want me to use wolfsbane to force myself to change so that I can practice not changing?" Stiles flinched inwardly; Scott had figured out the direction of the inquiry a lot faster than he usually did. Either they'd both already been thinking the same thing, or Stiles was a lot more tired than he realized.

"It's not like we can dredge up extra full moons for you to practice with," Stiles countered.

Scott squeezed his eyes shut, spoke the next words carefully. "No. Absolutely not. You don't think that one full moon a month is enough for both of us?"

Before Stiles had a chance to answer, Allison came up behind Scott, wrapped one arm around his waist. "This looks pretty serious," she said, resting the other hand on where he was still gripping Stiles's arm. Stiles could see the tension ease out of his best friend at her touch. Scott's hand fell away; Stiles tugged at his shirt sleeve, straightening it.

"Hey, Allison," he said.

She smiled back in acknowledgment, touched her head to Scott's. "What's going on?"

"I'm _trying_ to help your boyfriend survive the weekend," Stiles explained. The idea was a bad one; he knew that. Unfortunately, it was also the only one he'd been able to come up with, and time was not in their favor.

Allison's brows knitted then smoothed as she figured out the reference. "The State finals," she said. She tilted her head to peer up at Scott. "Are you that ner—Oh." Stiles could see the exact moment she put the pieces together. Her eyes went wide and she sucked her lower lip into her mouth. "What's the, uh, problem?" she asked, casting a glance around the hall. Students rushed up and down the corridor with pounding footsteps, lockers slammed. No one so much as looked their way. The two boys had always been invisible in this school, except during those occasions when Jackson needed a target. Even with his co-captain status, Scott still managed to slip through the attention spotlights of the school gossip seekers. Though often an impediment in their social lives, that they flew below everyone's radar could occasionally be useful.

"Yeaaah," Stiles drawled, as Allison worked through the issue on her own. "And, uh, is that your dad?" he asked. He blinked, wet his lips. He could have sworn that he just saw Chris Argent striding through the crowd toward the main office. The man carried himself with a confidence that no high schooler could mimic, making him anything but invisible.

Scott yelped and ducked the other direction, moving faster than even Stiles knew he was capable of. He vanished around the corner before either of his friends could react.

Allison shrugged. "I guess," she answered. "I think he said he was meeting with the superintendent today." She crossed her arms, pulling at the lapels of the short purple jacket she wore over her dress, as if trying to enclose herself in it.

As if choreographed, they both turned to look in the direction Scott had gone, then back at each other. Since the showdown with the Alpha, Chris and Scott had reached a kind of no-aggression truce that was largely hinged on each pretending that the other didn't exist. The arrangement was far from ideal, but seemed to be the best they could agree on.

Allison offered a wry smile. "I guess every girl's father wants to kill her boyfriend," she said. "Mine, just a little more literally." It wasn't a joke, but Stiles got the impression that he was supposed to treat it like one.

He opened his mouth just as the first bell rang. For an instant, he was amused at the thought that he caused the jangling. "Damn," he said, instead. He yanked off his baseball cap, shoved it bill down into his back pocket. "So, see you at lunch?"

"Um, maybe," Allison replied, still staring down the hall. Then she shook her head, her long hair swishing over her shoulders. "Probably. Dad should be done by then." She offered a tentative smile, as if apologizing for something. With that, she headed for her locker.

Stiles watched her go and scowled. It would really make his life easier if people would stop being so mysterious in his presence. Didn't they realize that they weren't giving him a choice about being nosey?

He shook his head, the realization of what he needed to do becoming obvious. If he was going to make it through the day and solve all the problems that everyone kept pushing in front of him, he was going to need a lot more help. In front of his own locker, partially concealed by the open door, he slipped a couple pills from his pocket. He popped the Adderall into his mouth and dry swallowed them.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles and Scott had five classes together, including their free period. Not including lunch, which was definitely Stiles's favorite class, though it didn't count toward graduation—a point he had actually taken up with the school board during his freshman year speech class. The students had been assigned to write and deliver a persuasive speech to a real audience. He took his case before the school board, and lost. But he got an A.

From this vantage point, he got a snap-shot view of Allison and Scott's fight that day. In Stiles's observation, most couples who fought either avoided each other or screamed at each other. Allison and Scott did neither. When they were together, they didn't speak, but they also didn't stop touching. They held hands; bumped ankles, arms, and knees; brushed each others' hair away from their faces; played footsie under the desks. Since they had gotten back together, they sought the constant reassurance of physical contact from the other, though Scott was distinctly the guiltier. That they did this in near, and very tense, silence made it all the stranger, like they couldn't even bear to fight properly.

Near as he could tell, Allison wanted Scott to stay home for the weekend; Scott wanted to go to on the trip. Stiles had to grit his teeth, bite his tongue, sit on his hands to stay out of this. He knew that the more often Scott was told he couldn't, the more determined he would get to try. Scott had always been that way. Tell him not to do something and it became all he wanted to do. Why hadn't Allison figured that out yet? Each time he saw them that day, Allison's cheeks were more flushed; the muscles in Scott's jaw were more tensed until his chin started to look symmetrical.

Stiles slipped her a note between classes—making a special trip past her locker just for the delivery. It had taken him five tries to draft the thing, and he ended up throwing away several times more words than he used. Finally, he settled on "Don't break up with him. For the love of God, don't." When she looked quizzically at him, he mimed texting into the air, then pressed a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. She nodded, cupped a hand over an ear as if listening. Stiles flashed a double thumbs up; she was finally starting to get it. As she headed to her next class, she crumpled the note and shoved it in the recycling bin without breaking her stride. He only hoped that he wasn't wrong about what she understood. He thought about running after her to check. Maybe one question would be safe enough.

Jackson chose that moment to come around the corner. He was listening to something Danny was saying, a genuine grin on his face. Stiles couldn't remember that last time he'd seen Jackson produce a grin that wasn't laced with contempt. The blond had on a dark blue, long-sleeved shirt layered over a gray turtle-neck. Normally Stiles wouldn't have noticed clothes, but he was still looking for deviations in Jackson's behavior, and this outfit was very much a deviation. Since when did Jackson take his fashion cues from Scott? And, was it his imagination, or did Jackson's right arm look bulkier than his left?

In a few loping strides, Stiles caught up with them. "Hey," he said, stepping in front of them so that they would at least have to work to ignore him. "You got a minute, Jackson?"

Danny snapped his mouth shut, expression tightening. "I'll catch up with you later, okay?" he said to his friend. He shot Stiles an inscrutable look, but offered no other acknowledgment, and kept walking.

"What do you want, Stilinski?" Jackson snapped. While he sounded displeased about the interruption, he, unlike his friend, didn't try to brush past the younger teen.

"I know you're hiding something, _Whittemore_ ," Stiles responded. He swallowed hard, mouth suddenly dry at how the conversation might go. The query, itself, wasn't the problem. The way he might get the answer was. It was bad enough that his best friend tried to kill him from time to time; Jackson didn't even like him. He drew a steadying breath. "Areyouawerewolf?" he asked in a rush of exhalation.

Jackson's raised a thick eyebrow. "Really?" he asked. "You want to talk about this in school?"

Stiles regarded him for a moment, then dipped back at the waist, splayed his hands. "Would you like to go out for a burger after practice?" he deadpanned. "We could get a malted, share a straw, talk about where our relationship is—"

"Fine," Jackson interrupted. "None of your business. Happy?" He took a step, right into the space Stiles already occupied. Stiles refused to step out of his way. The two boys were now standing nose to nose, breathing into each other's faces. Jackson's breath smelled like onions and spearmint.

" _Actually_ ," Stiles said, holding his ground. "I think it is. Your answer is kinda important to how this weekend is going to go. So, are you a werewolf?"

Jackson retreated, opening the space between them. His eyes flicked to the floor, just for a split second, but long enough to give Stiles the answer he wanted.

Stiles sighed, relaxed. His throat was safe from getting ripped out. For now, anyway. He fought the urge to rub a hand across his neck just in case he was wrong and the gouging had already happened. "Friday's the full moon," he said. "You knew that, right?" Of course Jackson didn't, because he knew he wasn't a werewolf and therefore hadn't developed any need to care about the moon's phases. Stiles ran a hand over the top of his head, tried to quell the trembling in his fingers in case Jackson interpreted it as fear, when really it was the Adderall which had chosen now to really kick in. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, "So, winning the semi-final is pretty much all on you. But if you were going to be changing too, then I'd finally get a chance to play—which would be beautiful—but then the team might as well forfeit and save ourselves the trouble of going all that way just to lose." OK, so he was buttering the jock up; that didn't make what he was saying less true.

Jackson's blue eyes looked like they were about to cross from the onslaught of words. When Stiles stopped talking, Jackson didn't respond right away, as if he couldn't be sure that there wasn't more verbiage coming. Stiles often had that effect on people, though the Adderall made it so much worse. On the plus side, catapulting so many words at people often destroyed their defenses and they would tell him things they wouldn't otherwise.

"It didn't work," Jackson confessed. He sounded dazed.

"What?"

Jackson shook his head, clearing it. "I asked him to bite me. He did. It didn't work." Short sentences, like he'd already explained all this to Stiles and was miffed at him for not understanding simple concepts. The _he_ , of course, had to be Derek. Unless yet another Alpha had appeared in Beacon Hills.

"But you're not dead," Stiles pointed out.

"Obviously."

"And you're not a werewolf?" True, Lydia had also been bitten by a werewolf and survived without any apparent side-effects, but that was Lydia. How could it have happened twice to two different people and with bites from two different Alphas?

"Seriously, Stinlinski. You should not be throwing that word around in public places. Someone who cares is going to overhear you one of these days."

Stiles licked his lips. "Just answer the question."

Jackson pulled up the sleeves of his layered shirts on his right arm. He had to maneuver the fabric up his arm carefully, his teeth grit in obvious discomfort. A white bandage was wrapped around his lower arm, near the elbow. Peeling off the tape, he loosed the bandage to reveal a dark serrated gash that ran across his arm. It had scabbed over and looked well on its way to healing, though it would leave a nasty scar. If Jackson had been a werewolf, there'd be only smooth pink skin.

Stiles extended a finger toward the wound as if to touch it, probe it to prove its validity. Jackson flinched back, shot him a look of disgust.

" _Now_ are you happy?" Jackson pressed. He wound the bandage back around, started fixing his shirt to cover the injury site.

"Well," Stiles replied. "It does mean we have a chance at advancing to finals, so that's good. But Scott's still a problem."

Jackson scowled and rolled his eyes, reverting on a dime to his usual demeanor. Any connection Stiles had made with him was gone as if it had never been. "Scott's your problem, not mine," he sniped. "Now get out of my way before you make me any later to class." Rather than trying to push past him, Jackson stepped around him in a wide arc. As he walked away, Stiles noticed him reach up and rub a hand absently on the back of his neck where the claw marks had healed into a trio of raised scars.

Each looked to Stiles exactly like the scar his grandmother had shown him, on her upper arm, from her smallpox vaccination when she was a kid. He frowned, certain that he'd just noticed something important, but not sure what it was.

*****

There was a substitute teacher in Econ, an old man with heavy jowls and thick glasses who robotically informed the class that _Mister_ Finstock had other duties in the building today and the class was to treat the hour as a study hall. He then pulled out a newspaper— _The New York Times_ —and shook the pages open with a loud crack. A low cheer swept the room, nods of approval from the teens at both the fact that they got more time to socialize and that they didn't have to deal with Econ and Finstock's pre-Finals temper.

As soon as the sub disappeared behind his newspaper, Scott picked his desk up and turned it around to face Allison. "Please stop being mad at me," he said. He slid his hands under hers, which were loosely clasped on the desk, white fingernail polish glittering under the fluorescent lights. Her palms and fingers were calloused from years of archery and gymnastics, and were so a part of _her_ that he couldn't imagine how her hands would feel with smooth skin. He found the callus at the base of her left middle finger and rubbed it with his thumb.

"I'm not mad at you, Scott," she replied, speaking softly, but without hesitation. "I'm just not happy that you're planning to go. It's dangerous." She tightened her hands around his.

Around them, the rest of the students in the class had also moved their desks into small groups, except for two who had abandoned their desks altogether and were now playing cards against the back wall. A murmur filled the room, everyone struggling to keep their volumes down while they chattered. No one was studying, and they didn't want to be forced to start.

"I _know_. Allison, I know. Can you please just trust me?" He tucked his feet between hers, leaned closer. Since she had discovered his secret, she had changed all of her cleansing products to no-scent ones, except for her shampoo. He hadn't realized that the clashing smells of lotion, conditioner, body wash, shampoo, and makeup had bothered him until after she eliminated them. He found the mix of just the pomegranate shampoo with her natural body scents to be so pleasant that he couldn't resist grabbing sniffs.

"Because you know what you're doing?" she asked. Despite the bite in the question, a look of bemusement crossed her face as he nosed the air in front of her. He knew he couldn't be in too much trouble if she still found his actions to be cute.

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "Because I'm doing what I have to, and that's hard enough without you being mad."

She mulled that over for a long second, lips pressed in a tight line. Finally, she nodded, then leaned in and planted a quick kiss on his lips. "I trust you."

"Oh, thank God," Stiles said, dragging his desk over next to theirs with a squeal of metal against linoleum. He dropped into the seat and fell back with arms and legs splayed as if he couldn't muster any better posture after such an effort. "Are you two good?"

Scott's eyebrows quirked and he glanced to the door. He'd been so caught up in clearing the air with his girlfriend that he hadn't heard or seen Stiles sneak in to class late. Apparently the sub hadn't either. Or didn't care. He hadn't so much as looked up.

"We're good," Allison replied with a bright smile. She raised their clasped hands to her face, rested her chin on them.

"So," Stiles continued, obviously seeking to change the subject. "You've been kinda busy this week."

The flush that had finally faded from her face with the end of her fight with Scott returned in small red blotches high on her cheekbones. "It's no big deal."

Scott heard it, the hitch in her heartbeat. His chin ticked up, eyes widened at the realization of what it meant. Stiles must have seen Scott's reaction because he leaned forward, draping his arms off the end of the desk. "Oh, come on," Stiles pressed. "If it's got your attention, it must be pretty important."

Scott cursed himself for not having a better poker face, slid down in his seat as if trying to avoid unwanted scrutiny, taking his hands with him; he had figured that Allison would tell him what was going on when she was ready. Since he was hardly the person who could insist on their relationship not having any secrets, he didn't feel justified in pushing. Stiles, on the other hand, could be counted on to pry, especially when it was none of his business.

"I've—" she pursed her lips, then pulled her bookbag into her lap and hugged it to her chest. She started to fiddle with the straps, as if half-intending to retrieve a book or folder inside, but not knowing if she really needed to. The next part came out in a whisper. "I've been thinking about starting an archery club. Here." She ducked her head.

"Really?" Scott straightened up from his slouch in amazement and relief. "That's all?"

She nodded, looking out through her eyelashes as if suspecting that she wasn't going to like what she would see.

"I think it's a great idea," Stiles said. His leg started jittering under the desk. "Beacon Hills had an archery team when my dad was a kid. Then this kid lost a-" Scott kicked the side of his friend's calf. Stiles bit back a yelp, but didn't kick back. "There were team pictures in his yearbooks," Stiles continued, chastened, as if to explain why he knew the school's extracurricular history.

"It's just that there are some liability issues. Or something." Allison cast Stiles a funny look, like she knew what he was going to say and wished he would stop spreading rumors. "I've been trying to find a teacher who will advise the club, but no one wants to commit. And now my dad's gotten involved." She sighed. "I didn't want to say anything until I knew if the club was going to go forward."

"Why now?" Scott asked. The school year would be over in only a couple months, which made it a strange time to start new organizations. Unless she was planning on having the club meet over the summer. He didn't know anything about archery tournaments or competitions, and that could explain the timing, if she wanted to spend the summer helping the kids get ready for events in the fall.

"I don't know," she replied. "I guess I just wanted to leave an impression. A kind of 'Allison Argent was here.'"

Scott nodded in understanding; didn't everyone want to be noticed, just a little? A lopsided grin pulled up the side of his mouth as further implications sunk in. If she wanted to make her mark here, that meant she and her family weren't planning to leave any time soon. More importantly, it meant that she _wanted_ to stay. "That's really great," he said. "Like, _really_ great."

"You really think so?" she asked, unable to hide the traces of insecurity that so often crept out when she shared some of her inner self.

Scott reclaimed her hands and nodded again, afraid to say anything more specific for fear of ruining her moment. This was something she needed to do, and he completely understand how tough it was to be stuck on the outside, watching everyone else have fun. He had spent most of his life being the weakling asthmatic, after all.

"Well, I think it's awesome," Stiles added. "This school could use some variety with its extracurriculars. So, which teachers have you talked to?"

Allison freed a hand long enough to return her bookbag to the floor, then started on a run down of her efforts so far: which teachers she'd spoken to, what their responses had been, what she needed from them and the school specifically if a club was to happen. Both boys listened, asking questions when necessary to garner a better understanding. Who knew that starting a club had so many tiny facets that needed to be considered and addressed before the seemingly basic step of signing interested kids up could begin? Liability, startup costs, equipment, risk management, facilities. She'd thought about everything. The more Allison spoke, the more confident she became. Her eyes took on a sparkle and her whole bearing an energy that Scott had only rarely seen before. This was her territory, her passion. He wondered that she had left it abandoned for so long.

Not until the class ended and Scott caught a glimpse a lacrosse stick bobbing down the hall on the back of one of his teammates, did he realize that he hadn't thought about anything lycanthropic for, perhaps, the longest stretch of time in months.


	5. Chapter 5

Two days had never passed so quickly. Almost to his surprise, Scott found himself starring out the window of the bus on the way to the State Finals. None of the nighttime scenery impinged on his thoughts. All he could think about was the various ways that the next day could go horribly wrong.

Back at the beginning, Stiles had told him that the full moon was the day his bloodlust would be at its peak. During his last full moon, he'd glimpsed what that meant. But, until the end of the night, until Derek had saved him from trying to kill Allison and Jackson, he hadn't understood what bloodlust was. The word brought to mind images of Viking berserkers and Mongol hordes hacking and slicing swaths of equally murderous opponents, or of serial killers laughing maniacally as they dismembered their victims. Scott had only ever seen bloodlust from the outside, in movies and videos, where it was violent and gory, depicted by people who had also never experienced it; he'd never thought about what it felt like from the inside—where it was everything but violent.

Bloodlust on the inside was calm and deliberate.

As the day of the last full moon progressed, Scott had felt like he was seeing everything more clearly than he'd ever seen it. He could see the betrayals and lies and petty revenges that masqueraded as friendship and love. And he came to recognize that the only one looking out for him, the only one who could be counted on and trusted, was himself. With each minute closer to the full moon, the people around him became less real, less worthwhile. Hurting them didn't matter because he could no longer believe that they hurt. By moonrise, he could hear Stiles in the hall, hear his heart racing and his fingers twining together, smell the fear and the worry—but he was no longer capable of thinking of him as _friend_. The word simply held no meaning in his head.

Then came the rage.

A calm, controlled rage that made him _need_ to kill.

And the only reason he could think of—one he had to construct later, yet that didn't do justice to what he felt—was that holding a dripping, bleeding, warm heart in his hand seemed amusing. Necessary.

The worst part, the very worst part of all, was that he could only dimly sense the changes to his psyche. Early in the day he had still been capable of remorse and guilt, understood that some of the thoughts crossing his mind were wrong, warped. That, too, had slipped away. By the end, the _Scott_ he was the rest of the month was gone, his personality and perceptions erased as if they had never been.

How was he supposed to control himself tomorrow if he didn't even know he needed controlling? If he believed that he didn't?

"Dude, it's going to be OK," Stiles said, nudging his arm.

Scott dropped his forehead against the cool glass of the window. "How is tomorrow _possibly_ going to be okay?" He managed to keep his voice low, though it didn't matter. Half the kids on the bus had earbuds plugged into their heads; the other half were talking and laughing, teasing and yelling. Bonding. He could hear it all, could listen to individual songs on individual iPods if he concentrated. Instead he chose to let it all wash over him as an undifferentiated mass. Even so, that he _could_ listen in if he wanted only served to remind him of what he was. "What the hell am I doing?"

"OK, listen up!" Coach called, before Stiles could respond. "Everybody! Attention up here." He stepped from his seat at the front of the bus into the aisle, one arm raised high, the other braced on a seatback for balance while the bus swayed and rocked beneath him. Gradually, the players' attention turned to him, their conversations melting away. Coach waited until the only sounds were the susurration of the buss's wheels over the road and the occasional cough or snuffle from one of the boys. "I've got room assignments right here," he called, waving his clipboard over his head. The silence turned tense. "No, I don't care if you like the placement. No, I'm not going to reassign anyone. If you've got problems with who your roommates are, keep your trap shut and save your issues for the field. Got it?"

"Yes, Coach," someone answered from the back of the bus.

A couple rows closer, someone else sniggered. Coach's eyes honed right to the seat, to the person who had thought he was safe in the darkness of a bus lit only with cell phone screens and the dim track lighting of the emergency strip on the floor.

"You owe me a mile, buddy," Coach informed him. He held the stare for a long beat, then turned back to his clipboard. "Now, assignments…"

Scott closed his eyes, tried to keep his breathing even, certain that he was about to hear the names of his first three victims. So focused was he that he didn't register the names at all when they came. Then Stiles was elbowing him in the ribs and pounding on his thigh.

"Come on! This is good news," Stiles cheered. "He put us together."

"Really?" Scott asked, cracking one eye lid. Stiles was vigorously nodding.

Coach still stood at the front of the bus, was still holding his clipboard. But no one was listening to him. As soon as he'd finished reading the assignments, the players had erupted into fluid combinations of jeering and teasing and celebrating.

"You can thank me later," Jackson said.

Scott's head shot up; the dark vinyl of the seat in front of him blocked his view. He started to stand to peer over the seatback, then realized there was no need. Jackson had spoken so that only Scott could hear, knowing that Scott would hear him. He didn't expect an answer. Searching him out wouldn't accomplish anything

"We're with Jackson, too?" he asked Stiles.

Stiles must not have realized that Scott hadn't been paying attention to the reading. "Yeah," he confirmed. With fading exuberance, he added, "And Danny. What are the odds?" He scrunched his face in contemplation. "You know, we're lab partners and Danny still doesn't like me. How does that happen?"

"Jackson and Danny?" Scott repeated, still not sure how he could be hearing the names he was.

Stiles shook his head, apparently coming to some kind of reconciliation with rooming with a person who didn't like him. "It could be worse," he pointed out. Always the optimist. "Coach could've put Greenberg in our room. Have you _seen_ Greenberg?"

Scott started to grin, then shook his head and forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand. "Jackson arranged it," he said. Why else would his co-captain say what he did? "Why did Jackson arrange it?" He dropped his head back against the seat, peered at Stiles sideways as if he knew his friend had the answer.

Stiles shrugged, spread his hands in a broad denial. "Maybe it's because we both know what's going on, so we can help you get through tomorrow if we're all in the same room."

"One—" Scott held up a corresponding finger inches from Stiles's face. "Jackson's not that thoughtful. Two—" Another finger. "Danny."

"Dude," Stiles replied, grabbing Scott's hand and curling his fingers back down into a loose fist. "Do I need to remind you about the lunch? Jackson's a dick, but apparently he's a dick who's looking out for you—whatever his reasons are. As for the second point, again, it could be Greenberg."

Scott nodded, conceding the point, and shut his eyes. He leaned his head back against the window and tried to tune everything out. He'd put himself in this position, and he needed to come to terms with it quickly. He knew that, though the knowledge didn't make it easier.

Soon enough, the bus pulled into the hotel parking lot. The doors had hardly opened when Stiles leapt off, leaving Scott behind to haul the gear and luggage into the hotel--mostly because "gear and luggage" included two duffle bags worth of chains and restraining devices. It was the best solution they'd been able to come up with. While Scott wanted to complain about the weight and bulk of the bags, he instead just picked them up with a resigned sigh at the fact that they were even necessary. He waited until everyone else left the vehicle before shouldering the bags. He had to carry the chains around, but damned if he was going to risk anyone asking questions about them.

He wasn't trying to eavesdrop. Or maybe he was. These days, he always had part of his attention tuned to Stiles. He heard Jackson catch up to his friend with an "Explain tomorrow."

And he heard Stiles jump, his heart speed up. Scott didn't know if he should be relieved that Stiles was surprised by Jackson talking to him or worried. His friend started to respond with, "Generally, it's the day that immediately follows—"

"Stilinski!" Jackson snapped.

Stiles sighed. "You really want to know?" He drew a breath. Scott could picture him bowing backward, holding his hands out as if about to present his answer on a platter. "Basically, Scott's gonna spend tomorrow becoming a complete tool. Then he'll turn into a monster."

Scott's knees felt suddenly weak. The weight of the duffels on his shoulders compounded as if the steel chains were trying to rebury themselves in the earth. He had to grab a seatback, lean against it, to keep from falling. Stiles's assessment was accurate; he understood that. But it hurt hearing his best friend state it so bluntly.

"But that's tomorrow, right?" Jackson asked. "He's safe for tonight."

"Shoulda thought of that _before_ you volunteered to be his roommate, Jack-o," Stiles responded. Then came a swish of hydraulics as the front door of the hotel slid open, Stiles's muted footsteps on the plastic matt inside. Jackson didn't follow.

Scott forced himself to stand up, to stop listening. He shouldered the duffel, balancing one on each arm, not because they were heavy but to make it easier to navigate the narrow aisle.

He made it into the hotel and to his room, where Stiles was waiting with the door open, without further incident. Jackson and Danny were nowhere to be seen.

~~~~

Scott tossed and turned through the night, dreaming of dragging his claws through barely resistant flesh, of burying his teeth in blooded muscle. He awoke to a pillow being slammed into his face.

"Wake up, Scott," Stiles hissed.

Scott came awake with a gasp. Stiles was crouched in the space between the two Queen beds, a second pillow clutched in front of him. He was trembling, his body burning with heat. A miasma of fear hovered around him. Scott looked down, noticed first that he was hard. No real surprise there. Not something Stiles would concern himself with, either. Then he noticed that the sheet and thin hotel blanket were wadded in his claws. He pushed the covers away, curled his hands in fists and drew them to his chest. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to calm, to push the dream-memory away. Slowly, he felt the transformation reverse. Very slowly. The change back fought him; for a panicked second, he worried that it might not work.

But he heard Stiles's heart slowing, his breath calming. The fear dissipated. The mattress sank as Stiles crawled back onto it. "Are you OK in there?" Stiles asked, tossing that second pillow up against the headboard.

Scott ran his tongue against his blunt teeth. Nodded.

"I woke up to pee," Stiles explained, as if he needed to. "What were you dreaming about?" He sounded like he had to ask, like it was a compulsion and even he didn't understand why he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

A glance at the clock revealed that the morning had barely started. Breakfast wouldn't open for another hour yet. Jackson and Danny were sound asleep, Jackson on one edge of his bed, prone, with an arm thrown over his head, and Danny taking up the whole of his side, flat on his back, mouth slightly open.

Scott shook his head, sat up, ran a hand over his face. Were his sideburns longer than normal? Was the stubble along his jawline worth worrying about? "Nothing," he lied. He stretched, arms shoved high in the air until his back cracked with a series of pops. His vision slipped into the higher registers—the body heat emanating from Stiles becoming visible, the walls picking up a glow from the wiring in them—then back out.

Stiles stared at him for a long second, his mouth hanging open. "Full moon stuff?" he finally asked, as if he needed to.

Scott groaned. Sometimes he really wished Stiles wasn't so persistent. Scott wanted to bury the dream, not think about it more. "Yeah." He dragged a hand through his sleep-mussed hair.

Stiles crept closer, frowned like he was going to press the topic further, then gave Scott's shoulder a light punch that changed the mood. "So, I was thinking… Don't roll your eyes, you don't know what I was thinking about."

Scott grinned, tried to look innocent. It wasn't easy. His body still thrummed with the leftover rush from the dream and he couldn't shake the fact that Stiles's fear had smelled so _good_. "I didn't say anything."

"Damn right, you didn't. I figure all you need to do is fake an injury. Coach can't make you play if you're injured."

"'Fake an injury'? Like what? Spraining my ankle? He'll just tell me to walk it off. Can't you hear him?"

Stiles's face fell. He licked his lips, searched the fire sprinkler in the ceiling for more suggestions. "Asthma attack! You haven't had one of those in awhile."

"Wouldn't get me out of tonight unless I got sent to the hospital, and that would be bad." They both went quiet, mulling over just how bad it would be for Scott to land in the hospital on a full moon night. Aside from the whole shifting thing—which, really, should be done as far away from medical professionals as possible—there was the homicidal rage. The last thing Scott needed was a building of sick, weak, and dying people to prey on. Scott knew enough about predators to know that patients in a hospital described the ideal prey. His wolf would have a field day.

"Well, you've gotta do something," Stiles interjected. The words sounded loud in the silence, even though both of them were whispering.

Scott dropped back on the bed, grabbed the pillow and pulled it over his face. "I know," he moaned. "What about the other part?" The question came through muffled, even to his ears, and for a moment he wasn't sure if Stiles had heard it.

Stiles sighed. "That part's trickier. Who would imagine that a hotel room wouldn't be werewolf-friendly." He squeezed the pillow in his lap, pushing his frustration at the inequities of the world into the feather stuffing. "The bed doesn't have a headboard and none of the chains are long enough to reach all the way around the mattress. I thought we might try the chair—" The chair was a faux-leather executive with flimsy plastic arms that Scott knew he'd be able to break through with hardly a good squeeze. The hotel didn't even have a decent radiator to offer. "-but we're going to have to truss you up—"

"Truss?" Scott interrupted, pulling the pillow aside to glare with one eye at his friend. "What kind of word is that?"

Stiles scratched his head. "Pretty much the right one," he replied. "We're going to use a lot more than one pair of handcuffs, and Jackson is here to help if you try to fight."

Scott groaned, pressed the pillow back over his face. "What if this doesn't work?"

"I have an idea about that, but it's not ready for Prime Time yet. As for the game, I really think injury is the best way to go. Jackson probably won't object to slamming into you during practice."

Scott waited for him to say more, perhaps to explain how they were going to orchestrate a faked injury without injuring anyone who didn't have werewolf healing. Or without Scott getting caught having werewolf healing.

Danny snuffled in his sleep and rolled over. Scott and Stiles both froze. The mattress shifted as Stiles moved, turning slowly to check the sleeping status of the other two boys. His foot rubbing against the cotton sheets sounded guilty. Scott would have liked to be able to tell him that both the others had slept right through the conversation going on in the room, but he realized that he didn't know. He hadn't even thought to listen. A quick check now revealed that Jackson still soundly slept, his heartbeat slow and soft. Danny sounded like he was about to wake up; his heartbeat had started to speed up.

"Lie down," Scott hissed, quickly moving the pillow under his head. Stiles complied, curling up on his side with his back to the other bed. His breathing dropped from slightly panicked to sleep-steady so fast that Scott knew he'd had a lot of experience faking. How often had he lain awake at night, pretending otherwise for his father's sake?

Danny rolled over with a grunt, then settled back down into sleep. Scott breathed a sigh of relief at passing the first hurdle of the day. As if his problems weren't bad enough, he had to negotiate around the one person in his room who didn't know what was going on.


	6. Chapter 6

Scott monitored his behavior closely throughout the morning, trying to get a clearer picture of the effects of the full moon. With the Alpha dead, this full moon might be different. He had no way to know how much of what he'd previously seen and felt had been manipulated by Peter. He hoped it had been a lot, like, most-of-it. Nothing could be better than to learn that his behaviors during the last full moon had been an aberration.

While looking for his hairbrush, which was not on the table where he swore he'd just put it, he turned around quickly—and caught Jackson's sudden jump, his surprised gulp. Jackson tried to save face with an upturned sneer and a "lose your manhood, McCall?" but Scott could smell the fear pouring off him, had to duck into the bathroom quickly so no one would see his claws sprout and his eyes blaze. He realized then that, even allowing for the challenges of four guys trying to move around a hotel room, Jackson had somehow always managed to be on the opposite side of the room from Scott. Did he realize what he was doing? Scott listened to Jackson's movements now, but all he heard was the clicking of the older boy texting.

He also heard the rushing of water through the pipes all through the hotel, of a score of showers running at once. He heard the arrival of one of the other lacrosse teams in the lobby, piling into the lobby early and impatient at the hotel rules for checking in. Hundreds of people packed together breathed and swallowed, chattered and slurped. The sounds started to press in around him, press in on him. Three sharp bangs at the bathroom door jerked him out of the quagmire, and Stiles was asking through the door, "Scott, Scott, you OK in there?" for the second time that day.

Scott started, wavered on his feet as he tried to recalibrate. He splashed some water on his face, inspected his eyes in the mirror, not trusting them to be brown or to stay that way. Opening the door, he saw Stiles still waiting for an answer, looking suspicious of the one he would get. "No," Scott answered, sagging under the reality of what that word meant.

Stiles clapped a hand on his shoulder, mouth thinned into a line that didn't go far enough to be called a smile, much less a reassuring one. "This time tomorrow," he replied with false cheer. "Yeah? It'll all be better."

Scott could only roll his eyes and look away.

At breakfast in the hotel lobby, Jackson dropped a paper cup full of orange juice in front of Scott without comment. The room was packed with people, many of them athletes, family members, or fans who had arrived early for the semi-final games. Extra tables and chairs had been brought out and shoved into the space, and it still wasn't enough. Lines backed up at the buffet area and people jostled and squabbled with each other over the rapidly diminishing tray of bacon and the territorial rights to the pancake machine.

"Cut it out, Jackson," Stiles whispered to the older boy while the two were waiting in front of the toaster. "No amount of groveling is going to save your life if he decides to kill you."

Scott speared the rest of the pancake on his plate and shoved the whole thing into his mouth while he pretended that the person he was listening to was Danny who was sitting at the table with him and sharing his extensive analysis of the other teams.

"…my money's on Eastside," Danny concluded. He unwrapped the plastic from a chocolate chip muffin. The chemical scent of preservatives that wafted out made Scott wrinkle his nose in disgust. "If they win, we're going to have some real competition out there."

Similar analysis was going on at every table in the room, unofficial bets being placed for and against every school involved in the semi-finals. Emotions were taut, nerves on edge and showing in tapping fingers, bouncing knees, and a lot of people talking with their mouths full.

"What do you think, McCall?" Danny asked. He took a bite from the muffin, washed it back with a swig of coffee. The coffee smelled thick and bitter, the cream just to the safe side of souring.

Scott shook his head, trying to clear these new smells out, for all the good it would do. New ones swooped in faster than he could process the old. "I d-don't know. I—" He squeezed his eyes shut, suddenly unable to deal with how bright the room was, how loud. He pressed his thumbs into his temples. "I don't feel good," he mumbled. It wasn't even a lie.

*****

Coach scheduled a late-morning's practice session, mostly to keep the boys busy and to help them burn off some nerves. He didn't push them the way he usually did. Rather he focused on basic drills and plays that the team had long ago mastered. He played them carefully, afraid that an ill-timed injury would ruin their chances at taking home a fourth championship. At least, that was Scott's explanation. It made faking either an injury or an asthma attack impossible. He quickly concluded that even Coach was working against him. Coach kept the practice short, then sent the boys off to kill a few hours on their own until it was time to reconvene for the game itself.

*****

Stiles wasn't kidding about his intention to truss Scott up, a word that Scott now knew the meaning of and loathed. The team members had drifted back to the hotel throughout the afternoon. They'd used the downtime to hang out, in all its loosely defined glory, with video games featuring strongly in the activities. Finally, it grew late enough that Stiles declared it time to lock Scott down for the night. Scott glared at him at the announcement, but slowly and deliberately drifted in the direction of the heavy armchair that was pressed into the corner. It had previously been buried under Jackson's and Danny's gear, and Stiles had cheered on discovering it hiding there.

Because of the timing of the full moon versus the game, Scott was still able to cooperate with his trussing. Or, at least, not fight too much. Jackson's foot and shin would probably be tender for a couple days, but he could still play. Stiles did the whole thing with his iPod on and earbuds pressed deep into his ears on so that he couldn't hear Scott's threats. Fortunately for all of their plans, Danny had disappeared a half hour or so before, citing a desire to go swimming and to hang out with some of the other guys. He would catch up with Jackson on the bus when it was time to go, he had said, as he walked out the door.

Working together, the two boys bound Scott's ankles, legs and arms, then used additional chain to wrap him to he chair. He could barely move, the weight of the chains on him heavier than the guilt he'd felt after he thought he had killed the bus driver.

Stiles tugged at one of the locks, let it drop, satisfied of its security. "That's it. We're all set. Yeah? Are we all set?" he asked, tilting back on heels and looking up at Scott with guarded eyes. He pulled the earbuds out. The song wasn't one Scott recognized.

"Is this what you guys do every full moon?" Jackson asked. He sounded like he was trying to make a double entendre out of it—a quip to malign the two younger players—and failing, the humor getting swallowed in tension and fear. He took a step back and inspected the work he'd done of chaining his co-captain to a tan and blue striped chair in a hotel room, the stark reality of lycanthropy.

"It will be unless we can find a cure," Stiles replied with a grim smile. His phone buzzing interrupted any further comment on the topic. Checking the message, he added, "perfect," then typed a short response. "OK, we have a game to get to—" He slapped Scott's knee like he was a job well done, pushed to his feet. "—a Danny to distract—Make sure you grab all his stuff, Jacks. The last thing we need is him coming back here for a forgotten jock strap or something—and a coach to lie to. Everybody ready for a good night?"

"What about me?" Scott barked, it just then occurring to him that they really would be leaving him alone. He gave a tentative, fruitless struggle against the chains.

"Got that covered." Stiles headed to the door and got a hand on the knob seconds before a knock landed. With all the activity—people running up and down the hall, doors slamming, televisions blaring—Scott hadn't noticed the arrival of their guest. Stiles yanked the door open.

Allison stood on the other side. She was wearing skinny jeans and a loose dark pink blouse, a large leather bag slung over her shoulder.

"Hey," Stiles greeted. "Perfect timing."

She smiled, wide and carefree, as if she had come over merely to watch "American Idol" and eat pizza with her friends, and stepped into the room. "Hi, guys," she said. Her eyes swept the room, taking in Stiles and Jackson still in their street clothes out of deference to their teammate, then landing on Scott and resting there. Her heart jumped; she exhaled in a rush, like she'd forgotten that she needed to until she didn't have a choice. "Hey," she said to him.

Scott grimaced, flushed with embarrassment that she had to see him like this. He averted his eyes.

Allison sat down on the end of the bed, set her bag next to her. "I read your instructions," she said to Stiles. "They were pretty … comprehensive." She frowned slightly on the last word.

"Good. Got any questions?" Stiles asked. He picked up his own sports bag in one hand, lacrosse stick in the other. He kept twitching toward the door as if he had to hold himself back from running out of it.

Allison shook her head and tucked a strand of hair that had come loose back amongst the rest of the waves. "I think we can manage," she replied. She offered a reassuring smile at Scott, the corners of her eyes crinkling.

He slumped as much as the chains would let him, his only answer.

"The bus is already waiting downstairs," Allison continued. "I saw Coach yelling at it when I came in. You two better get moving."

Jackson picked up his own stick and bag, then smirked at Scott, focusing in particular on the chain wrapped around Scott's wrists. "You kids have fun," he joked. " _If_ you know what I—"

"Really, Whittemore?" Stiles interrupted. "That's the best you can do?" He opened the door and ushered the older player out. Turning back, he added: "We'll be back in a few hours. I'll text before we leave so you can get Scott … presentable. The keys are in the nightstand drawer." All eyes in the room zeroed in on the squat, wooden piece of furniture between the beds. "And, Allison—" Stiles passed a hand over his face. "Thanks."

"Give 'em hell," she replied. Buried under the phrase was an implied, "Win this for Scott."

Stiles waved his stick in agreement, then shut the door behind him. Scott could hear them walking away, could hear Jackson greet one of the other first liners with a fist bump, could hear Stiles's sarcastic comment, "Bet you're real upset that isn't _you_ in there."

Allison leaned forward, the bed creaking, and propped her elbows on her knees. The blouse dipped open at her neckline, revealing the top edge of her lacy bra. "Do you want to talk while we wait?" she asked him. "I mean, it doesn't have to be about anything important. Lydia's been filling me in on the all the plans for Prom. We are going, right?"

"You talk," Scott replied. He didn't promise to listen, but hearing her, the cadence of her words, the tone of her voice, it unwound some of the tension building in him, gave him something to focus on besides what was about to happen.

She nodded as if she understood that without needing to be told, and started to outline the details of the event.

*****

"Where's McCall?" Coach shouted at the players. They were putting on the last of their gear, amping each other up for the game with good natured jibes. Someone had brought an iPod dock, so music with a heavy beat and no lyrics pounded through the borrowed locker room. A few players acknowledged his question with shrugs. Coach circulated the room, peering at all the players closely like they might morph into Scott if he caught them at the right angle. Stiles and Jackson resolutely did not look at each other. When Coach passed by, Stiles discovered that his arm guards needed to be restrapped and brought his full attention to that task. "Where in the hell…"

"Food poisoning," Danny said, stepping around the bank of lockers. Stiles's eyes snapped right to him, as did Jackson's.

"What?" Coach demanded.

Danny lifted his arms, palms up in a casual gesture like he'd shared all the information he had, but what he did know could be trusted. "Food poisoning," he repeated. "Must've been a bad sandwich at lunch." The team had been released to a food court in a mall for lunch, left to fend for themselves. Stiles had to admit that it was a good excuse. Since few of them ate from the same place, it wouldn't be strange for only one person to have gotten ill. Wait. Why was Danny making any excuses at all?

"That's right," Jackson jumped in. "He's back at the hotel. It's not pretty."

Stiles blinked, re-velcroed a strap with a loud tearing sound. That was it. His life had officially crossed the weirdness line of no return.

Coach scowled. "Food poisoning, huh?" His eyes narrowed and he spun the string holding his whistle in a wide circle. He clearly wasn't sure whether to believe the excuse, but didn't want to risk being wrong. "And none of you thought to mention this before _now_?"

"He was hoping he'd feel better…" Stiles began.

Coach slapped his clipboard against the locker, the ringing dulling the roar in the locker room for a moment and making Stiles swallow the rest of the excuse. "I don't want to hear it," he stated, his voice tight and over-controlled. He nailed Stiles with a glare. "I had better not find out that you're lying. You got that?"

Stiles gulped. "Yes, Coach." A bead of sweat broke out at his hairline and threatened to run down his face.

"You," Coach said, pointing at Jackson, "You're back to being the only team captain for tonight." Jackson visibly perked up, his blue eyes taking on a sparkle that Stiles hadn't seen in them recently. "You'd better play well enough for both you and McCall. And if you don't step up, then both of you can kiss you captaincy good-bye." And the sparkle went out just as fast, as Jackson's shoulders drooped with the weight of the expectation. With that, Coach turned and stalked away, muttering, "Food poisoning. It's always goddamn food poisoning," not quite under his breath.

Stiles and Jackson both breathed audible sighs of relief.

Danny took a step closer. He tugged at the guards on his arms, raised an eyebrow at his best friend. "Should I even ask?"

Jackson scowled, recovering from his open-mouthed surprise quickly. "McCall's a freak," he replied with a dismissive eye-roll. He grabbed Danny's forearm and pulled him closer, the better able to reveal the truth without the other players overhearing him. "I kind of owed him one," he hissed, "and if you _tell_ anyone—" He let the threat dangle.

Stiles could see the calculating in Danny's eyes, the weighing of options and possible responses—though none of it appeared on his face. Stiles nodded, unable to help but be impressed at the older boy's skill.

"Yeah, you're right. McCall's a freak," Danny finally replied. He gave his best friend a light punch on the arm. "Your secret's safe with me. Always will be." He cast an eye once more over the two conspirators, then walked away, his cleats crunching on the concrete floor.

As soon as he was out of sight, Stiles rounded on Jackson. "What the hell was that?"

Jackson's eyebrows shot up and he stumbled back a step, hitting the locker behind him with a thump. "I didn't say anything!"

"I know." Stiles pressed his advantage, a quick glance around the locker room verifying that everyone had returned to their own pre-game rituals. "Why?"

As if of its own volition, Jackson's hand crept to the back of his neck and began to finger the scars there. "I-I don't know." His chin quivered, and he added another, "I don't know," helpless, almost a whimper.

And then the answer was there, laid out in front of Stiles plain as the mutton chops on Scott's wolfed out face. His mouth dropped open. He caught himself, licked his lips. The bite hadn't failed. It hadn't succeeded, but it hadn't failed. Stiles collapsed onto the bench, the conclusion he'd reached too complex to be mentally untangled while still making his body work. Only one answer made sense: the scratches on Jackson's neck had inoculated him to the bite. But inoculation meant that a weakened version of the virus was in the body. And _that_ meant-

Before he had a chance to work through what this meant, the lacrosse captain recovered, his moment of weakness over, shut down, and locked away as if it had never happened. Jackson slammed his locker door closed with a reverberating clang. "Let's get out there and win this game!" Jackson announced to nobody in particular. Facing the locker room at large, he shouted, "Go Beacon Hills!"

Stiles grinned to himself. Oh, was this going to be _fun_.


	7. Chapter 7

Scott struggled against the bonds, trying to free a hand, a finger, anything. Stiles had done too thorough of a job trussing him up. He was able to shift the chair a couple inches across the carpet, but not to tilt it, not to gain any freedom of movement. He swore under his breath. Pitching his voice so that it sounded higher, more like normal, he appealed to Allison: "My nose itches. I can't scratch it." He tried to sound hapless, innocent, like scratching his nose was the only possible reason for loosening the chains around his arms.

She sat back on his bed against a pile of pillows, her legs kicked out in front of her and crossed at the ankles. The TV was on to some banal sitcom with a laugh track, volume up too high. The light from the screen flickered noticeably, even though every lamp in the room blazed. Though her gaze bounced between him and the screen, she didn't appear to have any more interest in the show than he did. The TV was just noise, something to kill the time while she waited. On the bed to her right sat a small crossbow, the kind that shot bolts instead of arrows. She'd snuck it into the hotel in her bag. It was nocked and ready to shoot, the wolfsbane that coated the bolt's tip pungent to his sensitive nose. She'd stopped with the small talk awhile ago when Scott's responses turned mean.

He'd been able to hold on to himself longer than last time, the wash of her voice pushing back the anger, the emptiness. As the moon rose toward its apex, he had started breathing deeply and slowly, fighting to stay in control for just a little longer. He could smell her concern for him, the tang thickening with each passing minute.

"Does it hurt?" she had asked him, interrupting a story from her last school of how a mismanaged Prom ended with the DJ quitting half way through the event. Or something like that. He wanted to care about the details—the story was making her laugh, her chin tipped up and teeth flashing white—but was finding it increasingly difficult to do more than hear the cadences. Her question cut through a fog he hadn't realized had settled in.

He exhaled loudly, nodded. The turn came on a dime, the last of his human side slipped away hardly without notice. "Why do you care?" he demanded, loud and suspicious. He rattled the chains that tied his wrists to his ankles, that kept him from lifting or using his hands. "Your dad sent you, didn't he?" he had continued, supplying his own answer before she had a chance. He lowered his eyes and glared at her, confident in his conclusion. How dare she pretend? He'd known there was no way she could sneak out of the house overnight. The only way she could be here at all was if her father not only knew about it, but approved of it. Wanted it. He flicked his eyes to the crossbow.

He knew that she could use the weapon on him. She'd informed him of that when she's removed it from the bag, and her heart had done nothing except lub-dub from one steady beat to the next. "It this the first meeting of the archery club?" he taunted her. "Is that your plan? You're going to turn the freshman class into werewolf hunters?"

The laughter drained out of her face and her mouth snapped shut. She eyed him, searching the realm of possible responses, searching his face. Her brown eyes glistened. That's when she had switched on the television.

"Do you want me to scratch it?" she asked, now talking about his nose—and for a second, he'd forgotten that he'd even brought up the topic. Her question was as void as if she were responding to a pestering child; she'd heard him, but she wasn't really listening. She made no effort to move. He wrinkled his nose, worked his upper lip, trying to get at the itch that only appeared because they were talking about one. He finally got it with an awkward bending of his neck and shoulder that should have garnered her sympathies, but didn't.

A wave of laugh-track swept between them, filling a silence that had been left with Allison's refusal to be baited.

"Please, Allison," he picked up cajoling a moment later. "I'm OK. It's OK." He offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile, had to bite back a wince as the muscles in his shoulders twisted. "We don't need to do this. Stiles was just over-reacting. You know how he does that. Can't you just untie my feet? They're falling asleep."

She chewed on her lower lip, the remains of her lip gloss disappearing under her ministrations. Her eyelashes brushed her cheek with every frequent blink. "I don't think so," she replied, voice soft but strong.

"I'm OK," Scott insisted. "Let me go to the game. You can let me go. The team needs me." He was pleading, his voice slipping back into its deeper tones as he tried in vain to appeal to her. He needed to get out. He needed to hunt.

"Because you know what you're doing?" Allison asked, finally looking at him. Her hand dropped to rest lightly on the crossbow. She crossed her ankles the other direction. She had kicked off her boots shortly after arriving, prepared to settle in for the evening. Or maybe she was getting ready in case she had to run. The heels on the boots would have slowed her down. Had she been anyone except Allison, he would have seen that as a challenge. How fast could he make her run? How quickly could he catch her?

"Yes!" The word echoed through the room, its desperation unmistakable. Allison flinched.

Another muscle twisted, lower in Scott's back. He arched against it. The chains across his stomach dug into his skin.

"It's starting," she commented. The blackout curtains had been drawn on the hotel window; there was no way to see the moon, but Scott could feel it creeping closer to its apex one muscle cramp and tendon snap at a time. Though the light wouldn't touch his skin tonight, it didn't need to for the change to happen. The moon just had to be in the right place, and it almost was. A restlessness suffused him, made him itch on the inside with the need to _escape_.

He groaned.

"Stiles warned me about this," Allison continued, as if they were talking about him cheating at a video game. She smelled of artificial pomegranates and cloying worry. "You're staying there until it's safe." She caressed the crossbow, ran a thumb down the bolt. "I know you're not yourself, Scott," she added. "I know this isn't you."

He wanted to snap back at her that he was, that this was _really_ him, but the barb got drowned in the start of a yell as the muscles in his thighs seized. Then Allison was on her feet and crossing the room. He didn't see the strip of black cloth in her hands until she wrapped it around his head. He thrashed uselessly against the chains, tried to twist his head out of the way of her reach. She had the better access and soon had the strip pressed into his mouth. The cloth muffled the screams that built in his chest and began to spill out.

"I'm sorry, Scott," she said, kneeling next to him. "I'm here for you." She tousled his hair. Her fingernails were gentle against his scalp. The touch pulled a growl from him. A look of hurt ghosted over her face, disappeared. She retreated back to the bed and the empty noise of the television show.

He could only glower at her until the next racking pain swept his body—unable to feel how much he loved her, aware of its absence.

*****

Jackson, Stiles, and Danny had wandered back to the hotel in the early hours of the morning. Despite the need to get a good night’s sleep, their late night out had been necessary. In order to buy Scott more time, Stiles had suggested a victory celebration. That he could suggest one was a tremendous relief. Beacon Hills High had barely eked out a win in the last seconds of the semi. He’d spent the second half of the game jittering on the bench, one eye on the scoreboard, fingers digging into his legs in fear that he would have to concoct an excuse for getting his roommates to delay going back to the hotel after a loss. He wasn’t sure that a demand for consolation pie would go over so well.

As it was, when he'd suggested the late night menu at Denny's as the only proper way to celebrate, Jackson had rolled his eyes. Then Stiles pulled him aside in the confusion of the players shedding their equipment and organizing their showers and reminded him that Scott didn't turn back into a human when the clock struck midnight. And, even if he did, midnight was still a ways off. The delight of four dollar omelets aside, they had to keep Danny out of the room. Jackson finally seemed to get it, and _he'd_ seen to it that Danny's protests about wanting to go back and veg in front of the TV were ignored.

By the time they finally got back—well into the small hours of the morning and with Stiles's stomach uncomfortably full since he had kept ordering things in an effort to buy a few more minutes for Scott—the chains were back in the duffel bags, Allison had returned to her own room, and Scott was curled in bed with the sheet pulled up around his shoulders and face. Only after Stiles climbed into his side of the bed did he realize that Scott was neither asleep nor fully human. Stiles choked back a screech at the glowing eyes that appeared in the dark only inches from his face, scrabbling with his legs under the covers in a useless attempt to run away from a horizontal position.

"Shhh," Scott said. "It's over." He grinned. And, no, Stiles decided, there was no way for someone possessing those fangs to ever grin and not have it look sinister. "Did we win?"

Stiles drew a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart and drag it out of his throat and back into his chest where it belonged. "We won," he replied. He meant it in every way possible, though there wasn't any way to pack all the nuances into the two words. Fortunately, Scott heard them anyway. Those two words worked a stronger magic than any sleep aid Stiles could have taken. As soon as they were out of his mouth, his eyes grew too heavy to keep open and he felt the dreamworld coming to get him, pulling him into the pillow.

Jackson woke him up in the morning with a punch to the shoulder. Danny was already in the bathroom, which Stiles realized when he stopped rubbing his shoulder and swearing long enough to look around. He immediately checked on Scott—who was lying sprawled on his back, was completely uncovered, and was snoring softly. No trace of the wolf showed. Stiles had never seen a person so soundly asleep before, including Scott whom he'd had many opportunities to witness sleeping. There was a heaviness, an utter relaxation, to his limbs, to the lines on his face, that gave the impression that Scott hadn't so much fallen asleep as he had completely passed out.

"Not that I care," Jackson began, "but if you want breakfast, you'd better get moving. Though I think you ate enough earlier to last you a few days." He was already fully dressed, wearing khakis and that layered button down shirt combo that he'd been using to disguise the injury on his arm.

Stiles groaned then, the memory of his indulgences making him feel nauseated. The things he did for Scott. "I don't think I can eat." He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and contemplated the bizarreness of both the spiral design in the carpet and the fact that he had just uttered those words. With a shake of his head, he confirmed, "Nope. Definitely couldn't eat another thing. In fact, I probably should just go and throw up and save myself from the inevitable."

Jackson raised an eyebrow. "Well, it's not like Coach is going to care if _you_ have 'food poisoning.'" He mimed air quotes around the phrase, shot a sour glance at the sleeping werewolf.

The bathroom doorknob turned and the door opened. A wave of visible humidity flowed into the room with Danny in its wake. Danny's hair was wet and slicked back and moisture gleamed on his face and chest. He padded barefoot into the main room, clad only in a pair of black jeans. He looked well-rested. Stiles hated him for that. "You ready?" he asked Jackson. He pulled a white polo shirt out of his luggage and slipped it on, offered a slight nod of "good morning" to Stiles who gave a desultory wave in response. Jackson was already waiting by the door. If Danny had any thoughts about Scott, he didn't share them. He didn't even look at the other boy.

Stiles took advantage of their absence to wake Scott up, just in case Morning After Scott looked anything like Morning Of Scott. He needn't have been concerned. On hearing his name, Scott blinked at the ceiling, scratched his stomach, and blinked some more, as if not sure how he felt about the whole waking up thing. Stiles grinned. This was the best friend he knew and loved. "We made it through another month," he quipped. "We've got twenty-seven days free-and-clear. What do you want to do to celebrate?"

Scott scrunched his face up, appearing to take the question seriously. Finally he responded with a shrugged, "I don't know." He rolled his head to look at Stiles; a smile was playing around the corners of his mouth.

Stiles grabbed the nearest pillow and whacked Scott with it. "Bastard," he added, the word dropped with all the venom of a garter snake's bite. Scott _knew_ how much Stiles hated that answer. Why did he keep resorting to it? He hit him again, and a few more times for good measure. Each contact made a satisfying thwap. Scott threw his hands up in front of his face to protect it, but did nothing else to stop Stiles or the pillow, even though he easily could have. Soon they were both laughing.

Jackson and Danny returned to this sight. They carried three fully loaded trays, the two in Jackson's hands precariously balanced on each other.

"You two are such girls," Jackson taunted. "Sleepovers and pillow fights?" He shook his head slowly as if despairing of the two younger players ever learning how to behave like men. Setting both the trays carefully on the desk, he removed the top one and slipped it onto the end of the bed. He clearly meant it for Scott. Stiles had to bite the inside of his cheeks to hold back the comment he wanted to make. Jackson really didn't appear to notice anything unusual about his behavior. But Danny did. The brunet eyed the handoff, eyes slightly narrowed. Then, without a word, he carried his tray over the arm chair where Scott had spent the night and sat down, all attention directed to the pancakes, sausages, coffee, and container of yogurt in front of him.

The sight of the foam plates and bowls of food piled on the trays with barely ripe bananas made Stiles queasy. While the other boys ate, he went to rest in the bathtub, hoping that hot water and a stealth nap might help quell the discomfort that he was noticing more by the second. The discomfort wasn't all physical, either. Jackson's barb had stung, mostly because it was true. But Stiles could always hope, and he did not want to be too sick to play if the opportunity arose.

No, not _if_.

He hadn't figured out how yet, but he was going to _make sure_ an opportunity presented itself. He'd come this far, put up with all the crap that came with being a werewolf-handler, Jackson and Danny's roommate, and the team benchwarmer. He was _not_ going to sit out the State finals. Again.

By the time he gave up on testing the limits of the hotel's hot water heater, his stomach felt better, and he had an inkling of a plan. Just an inkling. He knew from years of experience that plans at this stage were best not focused on, and they definitely shouldn't be shared. The inkling had to sit in the back of his mind and roil around like a pebble in the surf until it reached the right shape. It felt right, though. He knew this plan—whatever it turned out to be—was going to work. The confident grin his reflection gave him only reinforced his certainty. He winked back and gave himself a thumb's up.


	8. Chapter 8

After getting dressed, it only took Stiles a few minutes to gather all of his toiletries, pack his clothes, and finish rounding up his gear for the game. Unlike other people he could mention, _he_ didn't throw his dirty clothes on the floor or kick his shoes across the room for other people to trip over. At check-out time, the team would be piling onto the bus to head out to the game site. After the game, they'd be returning to Beacon Hills. So, the players had to bring everything with them—unless they were lucky enough to have family or friends staying for that extra night with whom they could leave their stuff. Neither Stiles nor Scott fell into that category, as Allison also planned to return home after the game.

Speaking of Allison …

As soon as the gear was piled up, Stiles pulled Scott out into the hallway and pointed him in the direction of the stairwell. For the last hour, Scott had been vacillating about whether to go talk to her before the game or wait until they were back home afterward. Stiles had had enough. The two boys were starting to get the hang of how to deal with the full moon itself, but dealing with the cleanup from what Scott was like during the full moon was still barely negotiated territory. Even though there'd been a learning curve on recognizing what actions belonged to Scott and which to the monster, Stiles had known Scott long enough to recognize that a difference did exist. Allison wasn't so lucky.

"Dude, just go talk to her," Stiles said. He gestured down the hall, vaguely in the direction of Allison's room. Scott had one hand on the wall, his head bowed. His feet were firmly planted on the carpet, in the kind of full-on stubborn balk that only Scott was capable of. It would have been funny if it weren't so pathetic. "She'll either forgive you or she won't. It's not like you're the first guy ever who has said things he regretted." Which completely skipped over the fact that Scott probably had _meant_ whatever he'd said. While being out of his mind under the moon's sway. So insanity had to be a valid defense, right?

"What if…." The breath Scott huffed out was fraught with frustration. "What if it was too much? She finally saw how bad it is. What if she doesn't want anything to do with me?"

Stiles blinked. They'd been around on this argument a couple of times already and he'd already laid out the reasonable arguments. It was time for a different tactic. "Who knows?" Stiles said, hoping to defuse Scott's pessimism with laughter or, at least, shock. "Maybe you'll _like_ what she has to 'say'." His suggestiveness wasn't even subtle, what with the exaggerated waggling of his eyebrows and the air quotes. Scott didn't seem to notice. Sometimes Stiles really despaired of him. Time for plan … whatever number they were on now. He clapped his friend on the shoulder and pushed. Scott stumbled forward a step. "Let's go." Stiles started walking, refusing to even glance back. Scott had to think that Stiles knew what he was doing. Before he'd taken a half dozen steps, Scott fell in behind him like he always did.

To make sure that Scott didn't try to change his mind, Stiles escorted his friend to the room in which Allison was staying—she'd managed to find an empty spot in one of the block of rooms reserved for the band—and waited until the door swung shut before heading off on his own mission.

Stiles needed to find Jackson. That's where the plan was leading him. Naturally this meant that half the high schoolers in the overfull building sported short blond hair. Every which way Stiles looked, he spotted half a dozen people who, from the back, looked like they could be Jackson. Not until he ran up next to them and got a fuller look did he realize that he once again had the wrong person.

He tore around the hotel, starting first with the public areas—the lobby, the pool, the weight room, the arcade—then up and down the halls of the private areas in case Jackson was hanging out in one of the other rooms. There was no sign of him. With a sinking feeling that Jackson was deliberately leading him on a goose chase, he returned to the lobby. While scanning the faces of the people streaming in and out the front doors, he absently grabbed a cookie from the basket on the check-in desk and stuck it in his mouth.

Then Danny was looming in front of him. Stiles took a half step back in surprise, bumping up against the counter. How could a guy built like that move so silently? Was there no end to his skills?

"Since you're down here, I'm going to guess that the room is off limits?" Danny sounded like he couldn't believe he was having this conversation, or any conversation at all with Stiles. Despite the fact that they were teammates and lab partners, Danny never seemed like he knew what to do with the younger boy. If Danny bothered with him at all, it was with a sense of caution and distrust, like he could never be certain which set of rules Stiles would follow at any given time.

"Off limits?" Stiles asked around a bite of cookie. "Why?" He was still scanning the faces of the other hotel guests, still keeping an eye out for Jackson—that would be the only excuse he could muster for his lack of savvy.

"Well," Danny started, "Scott's not down here, and I saw Allison yesterday…" He trailed off, raising an eyebrow in invitation for Stiles to finish the line of reasoning on his own.

Stiles choked, started to cough. Cookie crumbs flew from his mouth, some impossibly defying physics and good sense and falling down the inside front of his shirt. "Oh god," he sputtered, doubling over, still coughing. Danny pounded him between the shoulder blades. Stiles waved him—and the small selection of passersby who paused in mid-step to check on him—off with the hand that held the cookie. "I'm good," he assured them, speaking a little louder than strictly necessary. "I'm OK." Another wave of the cookie. The other guests continued on their way. Danny looked like he desperately wanted to. Stiles couldn't blame him.

Danny thought that Scott and Allison were…. in the room the four boys had been sharing …. in the _bed_ where Stiles had been sleeping … Unbidden, his thoughts flashed back to the werewolf porn he'd read. "Oh god, I'm not OK," Stiles groaned as the mental images assaulted him. He shoved them down as best he could, wanting nothing more than to erase them. He'd always been cursed with an over-active imagination. Now was _not_ the time for it to kick in. Sure, he abstractly understood that people had sex in hotel beds, all of them, but the idea of sleeping in the same bed that his best friend … he squelched the thought. Tried to, anyway. At least the cookie hadn't done any permanent damage.

Coughing under control, he straightened up, carefully. Danny's hand was poised for another round of pounding and Stiles didn't want to give him any reason, real or imagined, to act on it. "They're not—" And that's when he realized that they very well could be. Fortunately, not in his room. Not that it mattered, since he would be checking out from the hotel in an hour or so. But it was the principle of the thing. "The room's empty," he settled on instead. "Totally empty. No one in there at all."

"Empty?" Danny echoed, clearly suspicious.

"Totally. I walked Scott down to Allison's room myself."

Danny's brows knit and he tilted his head curiously. "You 'walked him down'? Like he's some sort of dog?"

Stiles's eyes went wide and he nearly started to choke again, this time without the cookie anywhere near his mouth. Was Danny fishing? Did he suspect something? "Noooo," he answered, dragging the sound out while he tried to assess from Danny's response how much he might know. Danny blinked at him, but gave nothing away. His expression stayed neutral, impassive. It was amazing. There really was no end to his skills.

The crumbs that had fallen down Stiles's shirt started to itch. He shook his body, trying to dislodge them. It didn't work. He then grabbed the front of his shirt and started to yank at it. The cookies crumbs clung to his skin, eluding capture.

Danny watched him for a moment, then shook his head. "If you're sure," he said. "I need to finish getting packed. Wouldn't want to interrupt anything."

Stiles stuck his hand up the bottom of his shirt and tried to brush at the crumbs which continued to try to burrow into his skin. "It's all clear," he reiterated. Once again distracted, he almost missed the side-eye Danny cast at him. He watched the older boy turn to walk away, and suddenly saw a piece of his plan fall into place. "Wait," he called. He dropped the rest of the cookie on the counter, and stepped into place next to Danny, throwing an arm around the taller boy's shoulders. "So, the reason I was down here, yeah?" Danny nodded once. "I was looking for you." Over the past few weeks, Stiles had been practicing lacrosse with Scott. OK, mostly he'd been practicing _on_ Scott, and he'd gotten much more accurate with his shots. All the running away from things he'd been doing had improved his footwork. And it turned out that trying to stay alive when things were intent on killing you was good for developing faster reflexes. None of that would matter if Stiles couldn't get on the field to show it off.

"Really?" Danny cast a suspicious glance at the arm. "You know I didn't bring my laptop, right?"

"Yes, you did," Stiles replied, with a contradictory wave of his free hand. "But that's not what I wanted to ask you about."

Danny tried to shrug Stiles's other arm off his shoulders. When it didn't move, he picked it up and forcibly removed it, dropping it. "I'm going to regret asking, aren't I?"

Stiles frowned. "You sound like Scott. No! Why would you regret anything? Have I ever let you down?" Before Danny could open his mouth to respond, Stiles bulled ahead. "It's about the game today. I want to play. I was hoping you could put in a good word—or twelve—with Coach. Maybe a bribe? A threat? Know anything blackmail worthy about him?"

"No. Forget it. I'm not helping you," Danny pronounced. He turned so he was standing square with Stiles and did something so that his shoulders became broader and he took up more space than he had before.

"Come on!" It wasn't a whine. Stiles didn't whine.

"No," Danny reiterated. "You used me once. It's not going to happen again. If you want help, try asking Jackson." He paused and made a strange, almost pained, face. "Better yet, have Scott ask Jackson for you." He shook his head again, hardly more than a shudder, like there was more he wanted to say, if only it weren't Stiles he was talking to. Instead, he turned and started to walk away. Over his shoulder, he tossed: "I'm going to go pack."

This time, Stiles watched him leave. He hardly noticed the people in the lobby, despite the fact that he was standing right in the middle of traffic. His thoughts were blazing. How could he have missed what was so obvious?

*****

Getting on the bus was chaos. Coach Finstock was usually great at keeping the logistics of the lacrosse team organized, and it was obvious that he was trying now. He stood next to the bus's door with his ubiquitous clipboard in hand, barking orders about what needed to go where. This would have been fine if the bus driver weren't standing at the top of the stairs in the bus also barking orders, many of which contradicted Coach's. Between the conflicting demands and the nasty glares the two kept trying to nail each other with, the players mostly just milled around in the parking lot while luggage and gear got moved from one place it wasn't supposed to be to another place where it really wasn't supposed to be. Nerves were strung so tight that Scott swore he could see the air shimmering from the reverberation.

Scott shouldered one of his duffels, trying to disguise how heavy it was. Despite his strength, he was still going to have to make multiple trips to get everything stowed. As with getting off the bus, the less attention he could draw to what he was carrying, the happier he'd be. A few more hours, and he'd be home free. He'd have survived his first overnight trip since getting bitten. Just then, the general hubbub dimmed; Coach looked up from his clipboard, his gaze sweeping the players before him and landing on Scott, where it lingered for an uncomfortably long moment of silent judgment.

"He's looking at me," Scott whispered to Stiles. He deliberately turned his body to discourage any further eye contact, while trying, and probably failing, to make the turn look casual and natural. Stiles already had his back turned to the bus and was ogling a group of band kids who were sitting on the low wall next to the hotel's entrance and trying not to look too smug about the fact that their gear had never been unloaded, so they had nothing to worry about right now. One of the girls had long red hair. Scott shook his head and shoved Stiles's arm to get his attention.

"Who?" Stiles asked, finally catching up with the fact that he was being talked to. Following Scott's furtive gaze toward the Coach, who was still looking their direction, he responded, "Duh. Of course he's looking at you. He's probably just worried about you. You were deathly ill last night, _remember_?"

It took Scott a second to get it. Stiles had told him about the excuse earlier, while they were packing and, more specifically, about who came up with it. "You gotta talk to him," Stiles had exhorted, even though Scott had already expressed his certainty that Danny was just being nice. Or maybe he was just following Jackson's lead. "I think he knows something. No. I _know_ he knows something. He was being awfully … knowing."

Stiles had raised an eyebrow at his utterance and pondered it, probably trying to figure out if he'd successfully said anything. He must have been okay with what he found because his whole body shook as he forcibly transitioned to his next thought. "Then again, maybe you shouldn't talk to him. You'll be helpless before his Everybody-Likes-Danny powers. Secrets would definitely get spilled." Stiles scowled as his mind skipped merrily down whatever convoluted paths it found when he started talking like this, and Scott had tuned him out while he finished searching the room for any of his belongings.

Scott didn't need convincing about the virtues of keeping his werewolf side a secret. As far as he was concerned, far too many people knew already. Between Stiles, Allison, the rest of the Argents, Jackson, and Derek, so many people in his life did know that sometimes it seemed bizarre that anyone _didn't_. That had to be what was going on here. First he'd thought his mom had been dropping hints. Now Stiles thought Danny was. Clearly both the boys were just getting paranoid.

Returning his attention to the goings on in the parking lot, Scott replied to Stiles's reminder of the illness excuse with a: "Yeah." His eyebrows twisted up, the rest of the smile driving them still suppressed, but only by sheer act of will. "I was sick as a _dog_."

Stiles came to an abrupt stop, his hands freezing in position in front of his chest. A breath passed, and he slowly lowered his hands. "Did you just say that?"

Scott grinned, nodded. "Someone was going to," he responded. "Better to say it myself than wait for Jackson to get there first."

"Good point," Stiles replied. He licked his lips. "You know that's not gonna stop him, yeah?"

Scott shrugged, happy to have this small conversation to distract him so that he wasn't making direct eye contact with Finstock—who had propped his clipboard against the wheel of the bus and looked to be headed his direction. _Shit_. He wasn't ready to deal with the coming confrontation with the coach. He took a step to one side, then changed direction and started to head back inside. His feet tangled on each other. Under the weight of the bags, he was already precariously balanced. Only Stiles grabbing his arms kept him from keeling over in front of everyone. He could only imagine the noise the bags would have made when they hit the asphalt, the attention that clanging and rattling would have grabbed that he didn't want.

Then, "Greenberg!" Coach bellowed. "What the hell are you doing with that tuba!"

Scott didn't even turn to look. Not caring whether the opening had been created for his benefit—not willing to even wonder if it could have been—he completely reversed his goal and ducked for the bus. If he could get on it, yeah, he'd have to sit in the warm vehicle for awhile, but Coach probably wouldn't think to look for him there until it was too late. He could delay the inevitable for a little bit longer. With any luck, those few extra minutes would be enough to come up with a plea so heartfelt that Coach would have no choice but to keep him on the team. And maybe he'd have enough credibility left over that he could put in a good word for Stiles and get his friend some playing time. Stiles hadn't asked, but he didn't need to. Stiles had helped him get through another full moon. Somehow he would return the favor and help his best friend play in the final.


	9. Chapter 9

Scott made it all of four steps toward the bus before he slammed into someone who stepped into his path through the milling team members. Their bodies collided with an audible thud; Scott had to twist has body backward, only his reflexes directing the duffle bag the right way to keep it from causing a second crash.

The person swore. “Watch where you’re—“ He spun around, one hand already raised as if to push Scott back to where he’d come from. “—going,” Jackson finished, swallowing the last word. The color drained out of his face, making his freckles stand out. “McCall.”

The disgust that Jackson had packed into Scott's name hit him low, stripped back the confidence he’d gained over the last few months. Of all the people who he had to try to run over, it would be the one who would most make him pay for what anyone else would write off as a simple accident. “S-Sorry,” he stuttered. “I was just trying….” He gestured toward the bus, then at the bag of chains on his shoulder, as if Jackson would know what the one had to do with the other, and would forgive him for his clumsiness because of it. “Sorry,” he concluded.

“You’d better be sorry,” came a new voice, strident with authority. “That stunt you pulled yesterday nearly cost us the game.” Scott turned his head, hoping that he had misheard, that the voice off to his left was another player taking out their anger and not who it sounded like. He didn’t get his hope. Coach Finstock had either resolved or given up on whatever Greenberg had been doing and brought his attention back to his star player. Scott gulped. Make that “former star player.” Coach’s eyes were narrowed and hard; he’d been counting on Scott—had made it clear that he wasn’t going to brook any excuses from Scott—and now had been forced into a position neither of them had thought he’d ever have to take.

“B-but it didn’t,” Scott protested, his voice sounding small to his ears. He winced inwardly at hearing himself. This was probably one of those times when it was better to just take the punishment, whatever it was, because fighting it was going to make the punishment so much worse. Then his mouth was opening again and he was speaking, at the same time certain that his brain had not authorized that. “It’s OK. We won.”

Coach’s shoulders drew up, his fists tightening into balls at his sides. “ _We_ won,” he corrected. “ _You_ stood your team up. Let ‘em down. A team doesn’t work unless everyone works together.” He hissed out a breath between his teeth. The gray sports jacket he’d thrown over his t-shirt in an acknowledgement of the formality of the State final was wrinkled and stretched tight across his shoulders, making him look even less happy. “Since you can’t seem to prioritize your responsibilities—“

Scott hung his head, knowing where this was going. Coach was going to follow through on his threat to kick him off the team.

“You can’t do that, Coach,” Jackson interrupted, the collision apparently forgotten. “He was _sick_.” He shot at glance at Scott, probably to verify that Scott knew the alibi and would be playing along.

Scott pressed his lips together, hoping that would be enough of a signal.

“Does this concern you, Jackson?” Coach asked, rounding on him. Before Jackson had a chance to answer, Coach supplied his own: “This is between me and McCall. I’ll let you know when you get to have a say in team business.”

Jackson’s face went blank at the shut down. No one ever talked to him that way, not even the teachers. Jackson was used to throwing his weight around the school, in part because everyone acted as if he had the right to make demands of them. Someone finally telling him to stand down was unprecedented.

The rest of the players in the parking lot must have recognized the strangeness of the confrontation. The milling crowd of players and fans began organizing into a ring with Jackson, Scott, and Coach in the middle. The chatter and babble of people with nothing better to do drew into the collectively held breath of a mob waiting for the go-ahead to attack.

At least, that’s how Scott felt as the people he had called teammates and classmates stared down on him. How could he have thought it would be easy to get away with skipping the game? That no one would be upset with his absence, especially considering that he could never tell them the real reason. His shoulders slumped.

The duffle bag slipped to the ground, landing with a metallic clang on the sun-bleached asphalt.

Coach’s eyes followed it down and stayed focused on the black polyester for a long, contemplative moment. Finally, he raked his hands through his hair, then straightened up. “You’re benched,” he announced to Scott. Sweeping his finger around the assembled onlookers, he pointed to one of the other players, selecting him seemingly at random. “And you’re starting.” He bounced his finger in the air as if about to make another pointed pronouncement, then dropped his arm and walked away.

If it was possible for the onlookers to get quieter, they did. No one knew what to do next.

Then a whoop cut through the air. The uncertainty disappeared and the circle started to break up, leaving Scott and Jackson still next to each other, though they were no longer standing together.

 _Benched_ , Scott thought. That… wasn’t so bad. He’d been certain that he was about to be cut entirely. What the hell had just happened? What had he missed?

The whooping wasn’t stopping.

“This is awesome! Can you believe it?” Stiles shouted into Scott’s ear. Scott winced, rubbed at the offended organ. “I mean, I’m sorry you’re not playing. Are you OK with not playing?”

Scott’s brow furrowed as he mentally caught up with everything that had happened over the last few seconds. “He picked you?” Now that was a really strange. _Was that_ really strange? Had Coach selected Stiles on purpose?

“Yeah. Can you believe it?” Stiles punched Scott’s arm, then threw his own arm around Scott’s shoulders.

Scott closed his eyes and drew a deep, calming breath. Somewhere in all this, he’d missed the punch line. But, if he was benched—if he was _only_ benched and not cut from the team—he’d have time at the game to figure it out—while he watched his best friend play. He could live with that. The smile that spread across his face was genuine and unmistakable. “No one deserves it more,” he replied, hooking his arm around Stiles’s neck and pulling his head down for a quick, friendly noggie. Even better, Stiles let him.

Jackson rolled his head back in exasperation. “We’re all thrilled for you, Stilinski,” he stated. “We didn’t need a fourth championship _that_ badly.”

“Hey!” Stiles protested, standing back up.

“You said it first,” Jackson reminded him. He stepped in closer to the younger boys and aimed his patented no-nonsense glare at them, the one he used after pushing people into lockers while he dared them to tell him to stop. “So, since the day is already shaping up to suck eggs, maybe one of you can explain why I keep helping _him_.” He flicked his fingers toward Scott, as if anyone would have any doubt about whom he meant.

Stiles and Scott traded glances and Scott shook his head once. _Please don’t_ , he thought, knowing that it was already too late to restrain his friend. He could see the gleam spark in Stiles’s eyes. How he hated that look. That was the look that got him to go out into the woods in the middle of the night when he should have been home sleeping. Nearly everything Scott regretted about his life started with that spark. Unfortunately, so had everything that had given his life definition and was a tale worth re-telling.

“That’s actually a funny story,” Stiles replied with a strained chuckle. He threw his arms around each of the other boys’ shoulders and started guiding them to the edge of the parking lot. Scott went because it was Stiles leading; he didn’t know what Jackson’s excuse was. Stiles led them through the parking lot and behind a cluster of tall bushes at the corner of the building. As soon as they were out of anyone’s immediate eyesight, he let go of his teammates. “So, Jackson,” he said, squaring up on the older boy, “remember how Scott told you that being a werewolf pretty much sucks?”

Jackson came to a stop and reached up to straighten his collar and smooth out imaginary wrinkles on his shirt left by the manhandling. He threw a glance over his shoulder at the rest of the team, some of whom had finally gotten organized enough to start loading gear onto the bus. He then shot Stiles a look of disgust. “You really go through life talking like no one can hear you, don’t you?”

“No. I talk like no one’s _listening_ to me. There’s a difference, dumbass.”

Scott raised his eyebrows at Stiles’s correction, which really didn’t help the point he was trying to make. Then, he processed what had been said before that. Turning back to Jackson, he demanded, “What did you do?”

“He went and got himself bit,” Stiles answered, as if Scott hadn’t already figured that part out. Scott had been able to smell the wound on Jackson’s arm, and he’d recognized that Jackson’s overall scent had changed, though he had no way of describing _how_ it differed, except that it reminded him of the way vanilla extract tasted. It had taken him awhile to put the pieces together, especially since he couldn’t picture anyone, much less Jackson, voluntarily approaching the new Alpha. Overhearing Stiles’s comment to Jackson in the hall the previous night had been the final piece. He remembered the comment right before he fell asleep, and that’s when a whole lot of other things either made sense or got weirder; he wasn’t yet sure which.

“It should have worked,” Jackson protested, his tone creeping toward a whine. He rested his left hand on the arm that bore the bite scar, as if to remind himself that it had even happened.

“And if it had worked, we’d be having an entirely different conversation right now. We definitely would have had an entirely different conversation on Tuesday.” Now it was Stiles’s turn to glare at Jackson, as if challenging him to remember the whole conversation and not just the parts he wanted to.  “The point is, it _didn’t_ work. And now you’re stuck forever sucking up to Scott.”

“I-I don’t understand,” Jackson replied. He pulled the wounded arm in toward his chest, unconsciously protecting it.

A breeze rippled through the bushes, rustling the branches and carrying the pungent scent of anticipation that had been building all morning and was now reaching cloying levels. Scott turned his face away, tried to not breathe the breeze directly. His thoughts flashed to earlier, when he and Stiles were packing. “Isn’t it interesting that the day after the full moon doesn’t affect you like the day of does, even though the amount of time on either side of the apex is the same?” Stiles had asked, apropos of nothing. Scott had been looking for his toothbrush at the time, and he’d shrugged the comment off then as another instance of Stiles’s brain-mouth filter malfunctioning. Now, standing in the parking lot with all the smells building around him, including Jackson’s increasing anxiety and annoyance, he was grateful for the simple truth Stiles had highlighted. If this confrontation had occurred yesterday, Scott knew he wouldn’t have made it through the day.  Why did Jackson want to be a werewolf so badly? Why would he risk his life to get it?

“…you’ve watched _Animal Planet_ , right?” Stiles was asking as Scott returned his attention to the now. “You know basic stuff about wolves, like how they mate. For life.” He widened his eyes at Jackson, daring him to work out the significance of what he was saying.

Jackson opened his mouth to protest; what else could he do?

He didn’t get a chance.

Stiles had been admirably restrained, but he was capable of only so much self-control. He started to sputter, then giggle. “Oh god. I’m sorry, Scott. I couldn’t do it,” he managed to get out around his laughter. He keeled over, one hand on his stomach, his own mirth too much to contain.

Jackson’s face flushed and his lips curled back. “What are you suggesting, Stilinski?” Jackson spat out.

Scott sighed, wishing he had stayed tuned out. How had he let Stiles talk him into this again? Oh, yeah. It was the glint in the eye. Once Stiles got excited about an idea, resistance became pointless. Maybe other people could stand up to Stiles, but Scott had never had that ability. Ironically, that might have been why they clicked so well as friends. “He wanted to tell you that we’re mates and you’re going to be stuck with me forever.” He rolled his eyes, trying to make it clear how much Stiles owed him for this.

Stiles didn’t notice. His laughter had taken him to the ground. He hunkered now with one hand pressed to the grass, the other still clutching at his stomach. He drew a hitching breath, his eyes pressed closed. A line of tears ran down the outside of his nose. Scott leaned back on his heels and waited for Stiles to calm, preferably before his friend got so hysterical from the genius of his own joke that he wet his pants. Jackson would never let him live down. Jackson, meanwhile, reintroduced the glare, though it was less effective coming from a face burning red with anger and embarrassment. Finally Stiles found a break in his spasms long enough to explain: “It’s totally ridiculous. We’re not dealing with real _wolves_. Scott’s a werewolf. A _man_ -wolf, ya know. Person first.”

“You think this is _funny_?” Jackson snarled. He towered over Stiles’s crouched form as if the posture would reestablish his social ranking.

“It’s abso-freaking-hilarious,” Stiles agreed, completely missing Jackson’s sarcasm. A tangy burst of pride at his prank came from his friend that made Scott rub his nose. Stiles bit his lips and dug his fingers into his stomach, quelling another surge of laughter. Slowly, he straightened up until he was standing level with Jackson. Then he stood a little taller, reminding the other boy that he might be a few months younger and _only_ second line on the team, but he would always be taller, even if only by an inch or so. _We’ve gotta play to our strengths_ , he had said on so many occasions back when he and Scott warmed the bench together. That mantra was the primary reason Scott had installed the exercise bar in his bedroom. It was hard to play to strengths if one didn’t have them.

Jackson’s eyes narrowed and turned hard, his brows drawn tight. “I’m nobody’s puppet,” he replied, his voice dark.

“Yeah? That’s why you keep bringing Scott food, right? Because you’re such good friends with him that naturally you’re always thinking of his needs? And the way you were behaving in practice? That’s because you’re such a good _Co_ -captain that you want to make sure he looks better than you out on the field?”

Jackson’s lip curled up in a silent, potent, anger. Scott could practically see Stiles scoring points, could see Jackson undeniably recognizing the patterns of his behavior.

Stiles sighed. “It’s more basic than that. Or more complicated? You got bit, but you’re immune—well, mostly immune—to the bite because of those scratches you got.” He gestured toward Jackson’s neck. Jackson’s hand rose to cover the scars and he shifted on his feet, scraping his shoes against the concrete sidewalk. “Best I can figure, you’ve got just enough of the werewolf mojo,” Stiles continued, “or whatever it is, that you’ve picked up some random instincts. For some reason, you have to take care of Scott.”

“Your research is wrong,” Jackson argued, though he didn’t sound convinced of his position.

“Research? What research?” Stiles shot back. “Believe me when I say, there’s _nothing_ out there on this. You’re definitely one of a kind, so that’s gotta be worth something, yeah?” He brushed a hand up over the back of his head, then moistened his lips. “I’m not even going to pretend to understand why it happened that way. What I know is that Mr. Gotta-be-the-best-at-everything who, by the way, was kinda successful at achieving that—is yesterday’s news.”

Scott lifted his arms up to try to cut his way in, then let them drop when he realized that he had nothing to add. It wasn’t like arguing was going to change anything. A part of him did feel sorry for Jackson, but it was hard to allocate more than a tiny amount of sympathy, since Jackson had brought his problems on himself. The darker part of himself, the part that he only came face-to-face with on full moons, told him that Jackson deserved to have his pedestal kicked out from under him. Maybe Scott felt a little delight at being the one to do it, even if he hadn’t actually _done_ anything.

Any small sympathy Stiles was feeling for Jackson vanished even quicker. He backhanded Jackson’s chest, with more force than a generic tagging called for. “Uh-huh,” Stiles continued, pushing the topic too far, as he was prone to do. “That’s right, Idiot-boy. You. Screwed. Up.”

“You’re wrong, Stilinski,” Jackson spat. “Whatever this _thing_ is—“ He flipped a finger back and forth between himself and Scott, miming the connection. “—it’s temporary. No one makes me do anything I don’t want to do. This thing’ll wear off or I’ll force it to go away. Until then—“ Now he turned to face Scott full on, cutting Stiles out of the conversation entirely. “If you think you can control me, think again.  We’re on.” He grinned, an expression that rapidly curled into a sneer. “Well, you know, as soon as Finstock lets you off the bench again.” He chuckled, turned on his heel and stalked back to the bus.

Scott dropped his head back. From this position he was staring up the gray brick wall of the hotel. The glass in the rows of windows gleamed in the sunlight, preventing him from seeing past the drawn open shades into any of the rooms. It amazed him how much a perspective could change in a day, how quickly an upward trend could turn south. He had never deluded himself into thinking that he and Jackson would be friends, but for awhile it looked like they could at least be allies. Now here he was, less than a day after letting Jackson help him through the full moon in one of those rooms, and he had somehow created an enemy.


End file.
